Christopher Robe


Christopher Robé is a professor in film and media studies. He has published Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture., which resituates such well-known auteurs like Sergei Eisenstein and Jean Renoir in an American political context.,. It also argues that the 1930s proved a vital moment in time regarding the emergence of Left Film Theory,.
His most recent book, Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas., addresses the rise of video activism and the new anarchism from the 1970s to the present.,. Robé can be seen discussing the book in the following interview. He is currently researching video activism, state repression, and counter-surveillance in relation to copwatching, counter-summit protesting, animal rights activism, and Muslim-American self-determination. He has published an article on counter-summit protesting, video activism, and surveillance in the journal *Framework*:. He is also conducting archival-based research for a book on Raymond Williams that historically situates some of his key theoretical
ideas in developing grassroots media with present-day concerns over the democratization of digital media. His forthcoming collection co-edited with Stephen Charbonneau, "InsUrgent Media from the Front: A Media Activism Reader" is being published in Fall 2020 by Indiana University Press.
He frequently writes occasionally for Pop Matters and Cineaste:
Disruptive Film and Political Turmoil:
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Bill Gunn's 'Personal Problems' and a History of the Video Revolution:
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The Watermelon Woman, or What Happened to New Queer Cinema:
Disruptive Film:
The Quay Brothers Collected Short Films:
Two Days, One Night:
Boyhood:
Jean Luc-Godard, Introduction to a True History of Cinema: