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Stanley Cavell’s writings on film as a visual medium, and as making myths that address our scepticism about the values that allow us to see everyday life worth living, are emerging as highly influential in the burgeoning area of aesthetics that deals with the philosophy of film. The intent of this book is to trace the philosophical roots of his world view, summarize his general approach to the filmic medium, explain his genre theories, and offer original readings of types of film which are different from the comedies and melodramas that he spoke of most extensively. Throughout, I will be addressing his answer to the question “What do the Movies do best?”: of all the arts, the filmic medium is best at persuading its viewers to believe in the values it embodies. The book champions Cavell’s approach to philosophizing about film, as the most healthy and fruitful paradigm for discussing film in a philosophical context.

Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of sovereignty was profoundly influential for critical theory as it grappled with issues of security and state violence in the wake of September 11 2001. Yet his work was criticised for its lack of attention to capitalism and liberal governmentality, and it was argued that he ignored the problem of political action. Issues of economy and political praxis have become even more urgent for critical theory over the past decade as it has confronted the crisis of neoliberal capitalism and an increasingly turbulent and populist politics. Agamben and Radical Politics suggests that Agamben’s work retains its urgency for understanding the issues that underpin the politics of our time. It does so by focusing on his recent work on the theological history of economy, his account of a non-sovereign politics, and his longstanding engagement with the revolutionary tradition. The book includes a newly translated essay by Agamben, entitled ‘Capitalism as Religion,’ and ten chapters that critically engage with him on issues including the genealogy of economy, the practices of monasticism and use, temporality and historical method, and his relationship to Marxism and anarchism. The volume sheds new light on Agamben’s work by focusing on his treatment of economy and poitical action and, through this, opens up new ways of thinking about politics and critical theory in an age of financial crisis and political revolts.

Film remakes are often dismissed within critical discourse as unoriginal, derivative and inferior to their source texts, yet this mode of critique takes on additional layers of meaning when films are remade transnationally as this process raises further issues surrounding national and/or ethnic identity and questions of cultural power. In order to investigate these kinds of complexities, this collection of original essays focuses its attention on the phenomenon of transnational film remakes and the wider social and cultural issues that they raise. What happens when a film is remade in another national context? To what extent can a film embedded within one cultural context be adapted for another? How might a transnational perspective offer us a deeper understanding of a specific socio-political context, and of the politics underpinning film remaking more generally? Given the increasing emphasis on reworking existing material within contemporary global cinema, there is a pressing need to address the phenomenon of the transnational film remake. By offering a variety of case studies in which films have been remade across national borders, Transnational Film Remakes provides an analysis of cinematic remaking that moves beyond Hollywood to address the truly global nature of this phenomenon. From Hong Kong remakes of Japanese cinema to Bollywood remakes of Australian television, this book interrogates the fluid and dynamic ways in which texts are adapted and reworked across national borders to provide a distinctive new model for understanding these global cultural borrowings.

Concepts such as ethics, values and normativity play a crucial — if subtle and easily overlooked — role in Deleuze's overall philosophical project. The chapters in this collection uncover and explore the ethical dimension of Deleuzian philosophy along diverse trajectories and, in so doing, endeavour to reclaim that philosophy as moral philosophy.