(Un-)Disciplined indiscipline. The langue and parole of film studies in a post-disciplinary world

Abstract

Disciplinary indiscipline characterizes the post-industrial, post-modern, post-disciplinary intellectual environment. The certainties offered by normative theories are lost in a post-disciplinary virtual world that appears to be no longer fully grounded on modernist assumptions or even material reality. It has become common practice to meld many different and sometimes incompatible academic approaches in order to pander to students’ preferences. Contemporary approaches now especially mimic Karl Marx’s phase ‘all that is solid melts into air’, as many un-, ill- and in-disciplined post-disciplinary disciples shield students from knowing about disciplinary epistemologies, disciplinary histories and the paradigmatic evolution of film theories across different periods, contexts and conditions. This article critically examines some of these issues by applying the framework of langue (structure) and parole (accent) to make sense of film studies in a post-disciplinary media world dominated by economic implosion.