Introduction: Media Archaeology and the Resources of Film Studies

Abstract

The introduction to this special issue traces the interactions between the rise of media archaeology and the field of cinema and media studies. Arguing that media archaeology provided a necessary corrective around the question of media, I aim to show how its focus on historical narratives—especially on models of temporality—has led to a critical stagnation and a blind spot with regard to non-Western media. Drawing on the resources in film studies for thinking about the trans- or international movement of media, I set out the need for and terms of a globalizing media archaeology.