This innovative book is about the place of world cinema in the cultural imaginary. It also repositions world cinema in a wider discursive space than is usually the case and treats it as an object of theoretical enquiry, rather than as a commercial label. The editors and distinguished group of contributors offer a range of approaches and case studies whose organizing principle is the developing idea of polycentrism as applied to cinema. They refine and redefine key concepts in film studies, including identification and identity, narrative and realism, allegory and the national project, auteurism and the popular, art and genre. They re-evaluate how cinema shapes and responds to the philosophical, cultural and political effects of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the moving image, and explore the interconnectedness of films produced worldwide, as well as the links between cinema and other visual cultural forms. The contributors include: John Caughie, Felicia Chan, Tiago de Luca, Rajinder Dudrah, Song Hwee Lim, Laura Mulvey, Lucia Nagib, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Chris Perriam, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Julian Smith, and Ismail Xavier.

Lucia Nagib is Centenary Professor of World Cinema and Director of the Centre for World Cinemas, University of Leeds. She is Series Editor of Tauris' 'World Cinema Series'. Chris Perriam is Professor of Hispanic Studies, University of Manchester. Rajinder Dudrah is Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies and Head of the Department of Drama, University of Manchester.

List of Illustrations (to be provided)
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: The National Project
1. John Caughie
'Morvern Callar, Art Cinema and the 'Monstrous Archive'"
2. Ismail Xavier
'On Film and Cathedrals: Monumental Art, National Allegories and Cultural Warfare'
3. Ashish Rajadhyaksha
'A Theory of Cinema that Can Account for Indian Cinema'
Part II: The Transnational Project
4. Paul Julian Smith
'Transnational Cinemas: The Cases of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil'
5. Chris Perriam
'Eduardo Noriega's Transnational Projections'
6. Felicia Chan
'From world cinema to World Cinema: Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time and Ashes of Time Redux'
Part III: The Diasporic Project
7. Rajinder Dudrah
'Beyond World Cinema? The Dialectics of Diasporic Cinema'
8. Song Hwee Lim
'Speaking in Tongues: Ang Lee, Accented Cinema, Hollywood'
Part 4: The Realist Project
9. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
'From Realism to Neorealism'
10. Lúcia Nagib
'Oshima, Corporeal Realism and the Eroticized Apparatus'
11. Tiago de Luca
'Realism of the Senses: A Tendency in World Cinema'
12. Laura Mulvey
'Rear Projection and the Paradoxes of Hollywood Realism'
Index