In a world where change has become the only constant, how does the perpetually new relate to the old? How does cinema, itself once a new medium, interact both with previous or outmoded media and with what we now refer to as New Media? This collection addresses these questions by focusing on the relations of cinema to other media, cultural productions, and diverse forms of entertainment, exploring these sometimes parallel and sometimes more densely intertwined histories. Cinematicity in Media History makes visible the complex ways in which media anticipate, interfere with, and draw on one other ... More

In a world where change has become the only constant, how does the perpetually new relate to the old? How does cinema, itself once a new medium, interact both with previous or outmoded media and with what we now refer to as New Media? This collection addresses these questions by focusing on the relations of cinema to other media, cultural productions, and diverse forms of entertainment, exploring these sometimes parallel and sometimes more densely intertwined histories. Cinematicity in Media History makes visible the complex ways in which media anticipate, interfere with, and draw on one other, demonstrating how cinematicity makes itself felt in practices of seeing, reading, writing, and thinking both before and after the ‘birth’ of cinema. Contributors examine the interrelations between cinema, literature, painting, photography, and gaming, not only to each other, but amid a host of other minor and major media such as the magic lantern, the zoetrope, the flick-book, the iPhone, and the computer. Each chapter provides insights into the development of media and their overlapping technologies and aesthetics.