Ebook: Ostrannenie: On 'strangeness' and the Moving Image: The History, Reception, and Relevance of a Concept

Coined by the Russian formalist Victor Shklovsky in 1917, ostrannenie, or “making it strange”, has become one of the central concepts of modern artistic practice, ranging over movements that include Dada, postmodernism, epic theater, and science fiction, as well as our response to the arts. Ostrannenie has come to resonate deeply in film studies, where it entered into dialogue with the Brechtian concept of Verfremdung, the Freudian concept of the uncanny, and Derrida’s concept of différance. 

Striking, provocative, and incisive, the essays of the distinguished film scholars in this volume reveal the range and depth of a concept that for nearly a century has been changing the trajectory of theoretical inquiry.