Rudolf Arnheim´s Media Aesthetics

This project offers a critical consideration of the thought of prominent psychologist, theorist, and critic Rudolf Arnheim in relation to the fields of cinema and media studies today.

Considered one of film theory’s key thinkers, German-born Arnheim was trained in Gestalt psychology, wrote film reviews in the Weimar era, studied the psychology of film aesthetics, and had an exceptionally long academic career that lasted to the 1990s.

Notably, his 1933 book Film as Art became a landmark in theorizing cinema’s medium specificity and status as an art form. In the 1940s, Arnheim’s career veered from cinema towards studies of art theory and psychology.

Consequently, while still regarding him a  renowned film theorist, film scholars discuss his ideas almost exclusively with respect to his early works.

My project, which is simultaneously a critical and archival one, challanges the reception of Arnheim´s late work in two ways: first, by turning critical attention to discoveries of Arnheim’s little-known post-1939 work on cinema; second, by reassessing key elements in Arnheim’s theory in light of the currently shifting debates in the discipline that depart from considerations grounded in medium-specific distinctions.

My aim, in this light, is to construct not a linear historical narrative of changes in media theory, but rather new theoretical constellations – bringing together Arnheim’s historical ideas in dialogue with ongoing debates in film and media theory.