Moving Image

Legenda book series

Moving Image takes the moving image seriously—as an object of theoretical speculation and historical analysis and a medium of aesthetic complexity—and takes seriously, as well, the material practices out of which moving images emerge and into which they intervene.

Moving Image seeks to publish challenging and innovative work on contemporary and historical film and moving-image media work. Its distinguished history as a series includes an emphasis on European cinema; art cinema; avant-garde cinema; the intersection of film and philosophy; and the relationship of cinema to new media; the intersection of the moving image and the museum. We seek to build on this history of achievement but also to expand it in new directions. We continue to encourage proposals that speak to our existing strengths in the aforementioned areas, but we also invite proposals for projects that engage with or emerge from a much broader field of research areas. These include:

  • race and cinematic representation
  • global majority and diasporic filmmaking practices and film cultures
  • national and transnational histories of the film industry and its infrastructures
  • the history and theorization of early cinema
  • cultures of film exhibition and reception; classical and contemporary film theory
  • new media theory
  • feminist theory and practice
  • theorisation and moving-image representation of queer, trans, and other sexualities

Proposals. Proposals consisting of a cover letter, short CV, 2000-word outline of the project, and a sample chapter should be sent to the series editor. We invite proposals for both monographs and edited collections. In the case of the latter, a project ouline and 500-word abstracts (with indicative bibliographies) are required.

Review copies. Journals wishing to review books in this series should please contact legenda@mhra.org.uk to request copies.

Subvention. Authors in this series are not required to raise any subsidy or subvention, but are responsible in the usual way if any rights fees arise from illustrations or other copyright material included.

History. The series was established by Emma Wilson in 2012 and flourished under her guidance. In 2021 John David Rhodes took over as the series’s General Editor, at which point the editorial board was expanded in directions that reflect both a dedication to the series’ historical distinction and its opening to new avenues of research.

Editorial Committee

  • General Editor: John David Rhodes (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
  • Kay Dickinson (University of Glasgow)
  • Katherine Groo (Lafayette College, USA)
  • Priya Jaikumar (University of Southern California)
  • Nikolaj Lübecker (St John's College, Oxford)
  • Laura McMahon (Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge)
  • Tom Whittaker (University of Warwick)
19French Cinema: Stars and Histories
Edited by Stuart Bell, Mary Harrod, and Alastair Phillips 
Moving Image 191 June 2026
18The Plasticity of Film: Self, Ethics and the Image in Transformation
Michael Grace 
Moving Image 181 November 2025
17Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis: Cinema at the Edge of the Political
Katie Pleming 
Moving Image 171 March 2026
16Film Exhibition: The Italian Context
Edited by Damien Pollard and Edward Bowen 
Moving Image 162 September 2024
15Spatial Violence and the Documentary Image 
Patrick Brian Smith 
Moving Image 1516 June 2024
14The Cinema of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub
Edited by Martin Brady and Helen Hughes
Moving Image 1422 April 2023
13Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image
Alice Blackhurst
Moving Image 1310 December 2021
12Autobiographical Reenactment in French and Belgian Film: Repetition, Memory, Self
Tom Cuthbertson
Moving Image 1228 April 2022
11The Poetry-Film Nexus in Latin America: Exploring Intermediality on Page and Screen
Edited by Ben Bollig and David M. J. Wood
Moving Image 1123 February 2022
10Screening Work: The Films of Christian Petzold
Stephan Hilpert and Andrew J. Webber 
Moving Image 1017 September 2024
9Chantal Akerman: Afterlives
Edited by Marion Schmid and Emma Wilson
Moving Image 923 April 2019
8Blanchot and the Moving Image: Fascination and Spectatorship
Calum Watt
Moving Image 829 September 2017
7Thinking Cinema with Proust
Patrick ffrench
Moving Image 722 August 2018
6Agnès Varda Unlimited: Image, Music, Media
Edited by Marie-Claire Barnet
Moving Image 613 February 2017
5Africa's Lost Classics: New Histories of African Cinema
Edited by Lizelle Bisschoff and David Murphy
Moving Image 51 November 2014
4Holocaust Intersections: Genocide and Visual Culture at the New Millennium
Edited by Axel Bangert, Robert S. C. Gordon and Libby Saxton
Moving Image 425 September 2013
2Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras and Denis
Laura McMahon
Moving Image 21 June 2012
1Spanish Practices: Literature, Cinema, Television
Paul Julian Smith
Moving Image 11 June 2012