This image is the cover for the book Corporeality in Early Cinema

Corporeality in Early Cinema

Corporeality in Early Cinema inspires a heightened awareness of the ways in which early film culture, and screen praxes overall are inherently embodied. Contributors argue that on- and offscreen (and in affiliated media and technological constellations), the body consists of flesh and nerves and is not just an abstract spectator or statistical audience entity.


Audience responses from arousal to disgust, from identification to detachment, offer us a means to understand what spectators have always taken away from their cinematic experience. Through theoretical approaches and case studies, scholars offer a variety of models for stimulating historical research on corporeality and cinema by exploring the matrix of screened bodies, machine-made scaffolding, and their connections to the physical bodies in front of the screen.

Marina Dahlquist, Doron Galili, Jan Olsson, Valentine Robert

Marina Dahlquist is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. She is editor of Exporting Perilous Pauline: Pearl White and the Serial Film Craze.

Jan Olsson is Professor of Cinema Studies and former Head of Department at Stockholm University. He is author of Hitchcock à la Carte.

Valentine Robert is Lecturer of Film Studies at the University of Lausanne. She is editor (with Laurent Le Forestier and François Albera) of Le Film sur l'art. Entre histoire de l'art et documentaire de creation.

Doron Galili is Research Fellow in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University.

Indiana University Press