Nikolaj Lübecker is Professor of French and Film Studies at St John's College, University of Oxford. His publications focus on contemporary American and European cinema, French literature and critical theory. His most recent book, The Feel-Bad Film (Edinburgh UP, 2015), investigates logics of unpleasure in films by directors such as Claire Denis, Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Bruno Dumont and Harmony Korine.

Daniele Rugo is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arts & Humanities at Brunel University London. He is the author of two books, Philosophy and the Patience of Film (Palgrave, 2016) and Jean-Luc Nancy and the Thinking of Otherness (Bloomsbury, 2013), and his articles have appeared in various journals including Angelaki, Third Text, Cultural Politics and Film-Philosophy. He is the recipient of an Arts and Humanities Research Council Innovation Grant for the project 'Following the Wires', which uses film to examine post-conflict scenarios in Lebanon.

Introduction, Nikolaj Lübecker & Daniele Rugo

Intellectual Environments
Surveying James Benning, Scott MacDonald
Utah and the Times: Governing Temporality in Deseret, John Beck
Violence and Landscape in the Films of James Benning, Nikolaj Lübecker

Material Environments
Constructing the Transversal Time-Image: Ecosophy, Immanence and Corporate 'Land' in James Benning's Four Corners and California Trilogy, Colin Gardner
Men in Huts in Woods: Independence, Transcendentalism and Technology in James Benning's Thoreau and Kaczynski Documentaries and Exhibition, Silke Panse
The Earth as Material Film: Benning's light glance making a material-image, Felicity Colman

Perceptual Environments
A Lake-Event, Tom Conley
Defacing the Close-up, Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli
The Adventure of Patience, Daniele Rugo

Index