Book Launch - February 27 at 4:30 pm, Art Gallery

Please join SUNY Press author Milo Sweedler to launch his new book Rumble and Crash: Crises of Capitalism in Contemporary Film. 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, as the contradictions of capitalism became more apparent than they had been in the living memory of anyone born after 1920s, numerous films gave allegorical form to the crises of contemporary capitalism. Some of the films were overtly political in nature, while others refracted the vicissitudes of capital in stories that did not, on the surface, have anything explicitly political about them. Milo Sweedler's Rumble and Crash: Crises of Capitalism in Contemporary Film (SUNY Press, 2019) examines six particularly rich and thought-provoking films in this vein. Analyzing four movies from before the global financial crisis of 2008 and two that allegorize the financial meltdown itself, Professor Sweedler's book explores the ways that films as different as bank-heist thriller like Spike Lee's Inside Man and an intimate psychological drama like Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine allegorize one of the defining crisis of our time.

"Milo Sweedler has produced what are surely the most original, provocative, and downright dazzling readings of a handful of socially significant and potent films released during the tumultuous years from 2005 to 2013. This is a fine book" - David Desser, former editor, Cinema Journal.

Event coordinators: Languages & Literatures, Faculty of Arts

Day: Wed Feb 27, 2019

Time: 4:30 - 6:30 pm

Place: Laurier Art Gallery (in the Library)

Everyone welcome

Contact: Nathalie Freidel, nfreidel@wlu.ca