Abstract
This wide-ranging conversation between scholars Scott Bukatman (author of Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, and Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century) and Vivian Sobchack (author of Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film, The Address of the Eye, and Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture) is anchored in their agreement that spectatorial experience and fascination are as central to academic research and writing as are the screen texts themselves. Bukatman and Sobchack discuss the expansion of screen and media studies and its objects, the pleasures of interdisciplinarity, the accomplishments of phenomenological method, and the formal and existential effects of digital cinema. They also touch on genres such as the horror film and the historical epic. Throughout, they also call for a more vital academic writing style in which affect and carnality, playfulness as well as sobriety, do not obscure meaning but inform and express it.
Recommended Citation
Bukatman, Scott
(2009)
"Vivian Sobchack in Conversation with Scott Bukatman,"
The Journal of e-Media Studies: Vol. 2:
Iss.
1, Article 9.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1938-6060.A.338
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/joems/vol2/iss1/9