Saige Walton
I am a Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of South Australia, where I also help lead the Creative People, Products and Places (CP3) research centre. My research is based in American, European and World Cinema contexts. I am particularly interested in the relationship between screen aesthetics and the body, drawing upon phenomenological philosophy, art history, media archaeology and other film-philosophical frameworks to help make 'sense' of art and film. I also research and teach in film genres, experimental film/media, horror and intermediality.
My first scholarly monograph - Cinema's Baroque Flesh: Film, Phenomenology and the Art of Entanglement - was published by Amsterdam University Press (2016). In this book, I draw on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue for its parallels with baroque form and thought and to develop a sensuous account of the historic and cinematic baroque. My current book project explores the embodied and ethical appeals of a contemporary cinema of poetry.
Endorsements for CINEMA'S BAROQUE FLESH: "Walton speaks to a splendid array of theoretical and practical objects, producing a radical reading of cinema in, of and as baroque embodiment. The analyses of individual films are generative devices for testing and contesting phenomenology and cultural history, producing startling readings of films and intriguing avenues for understanding what occurs when we watch them" - Sean Cubitt, Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths, University of London
“Cinema enables us to look back, in a productive anachronism, to the radical way baroque thought and aesthetics refused to consider the mind on its own. Through detailed analyses, Saige Walton discovers Merleau-Ponty as a baroque thinker. But to make that discovery, cinema’s fundamental baroqueness need(s) uncovering as well. Walton stages a sparkling encounter between three moments, aesthetics, and modes of looking.” - Mieke Bal, Professor of theory of literature and founding director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
“In the tradition of scholarship devoted to cinema as embodied and sensorial experience, Saige Walton’s book distinguishes itself as a truly original and passionate work. In a bold move, Walton’s exploration of the baroque finds inspiration in a felicitous connection with Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of flesh. Cinema’s Baroque Flesh is essential reading for all film students and scholars seeking to feel the thoughtful and sensuous entanglements of cinema.” - Elena del Río, Professor of film studies, University of Alberta, and author of The Grace of Destruction: A Vital Ethology of Extreme Cinemas
Address: UniSA Creative - Magill campus
University of South Australia
My first scholarly monograph - Cinema's Baroque Flesh: Film, Phenomenology and the Art of Entanglement - was published by Amsterdam University Press (2016). In this book, I draw on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue for its parallels with baroque form and thought and to develop a sensuous account of the historic and cinematic baroque. My current book project explores the embodied and ethical appeals of a contemporary cinema of poetry.
Endorsements for CINEMA'S BAROQUE FLESH: "Walton speaks to a splendid array of theoretical and practical objects, producing a radical reading of cinema in, of and as baroque embodiment. The analyses of individual films are generative devices for testing and contesting phenomenology and cultural history, producing startling readings of films and intriguing avenues for understanding what occurs when we watch them" - Sean Cubitt, Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths, University of London
“Cinema enables us to look back, in a productive anachronism, to the radical way baroque thought and aesthetics refused to consider the mind on its own. Through detailed analyses, Saige Walton discovers Merleau-Ponty as a baroque thinker. But to make that discovery, cinema’s fundamental baroqueness need(s) uncovering as well. Walton stages a sparkling encounter between three moments, aesthetics, and modes of looking.” - Mieke Bal, Professor of theory of literature and founding director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
“In the tradition of scholarship devoted to cinema as embodied and sensorial experience, Saige Walton’s book distinguishes itself as a truly original and passionate work. In a bold move, Walton’s exploration of the baroque finds inspiration in a felicitous connection with Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of flesh. Cinema’s Baroque Flesh is essential reading for all film students and scholars seeking to feel the thoughtful and sensuous entanglements of cinema.” - Elena del Río, Professor of film studies, University of Alberta, and author of The Grace of Destruction: A Vital Ethology of Extreme Cinemas
Address: UniSA Creative - Magill campus
University of South Australia
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Books by Saige Walton
Walton pursues previously unexplored connections between film, the baroque, and the body, opening up new avenues of embodied film theory that can make room for structure, signification, and thought, as well as the aesthetics of sensation.
In Cinema’s Baroque Flesh, Saige Walton draws on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue for a distinct aesthetic category of film and a unique cinema of the senses: baroque cinema. Combining media archaeological work with art history, phenomenology, and film studies, the book offers close analyses of a range of historic baroque artworks and films, including Caché, Strange Days, the films of Buster Keaton, and many more. Walton pursues previously unexplored connections between film, the baroque, and the body, opening up new avenues of embodied film theory that can make room for structure, signification, and thought, as well as the aesthetics of sensation.