Article:

Encounters and affinities: Exchanges through the essay form

The term interdisciplinary has achieved ‘buzzword’ status across academic channels in recent years. Interdisciplinary methods of research are often carried out as a matter of import and export; terminology is borrowed from across disciplines by scholars and is then applied in an analytical fashion to whatever case study is at hand. In this article, I will present two case studies that position the essay form and especially the essay film, as privileged sites of interdisciplinarity as praxis. The first example centres on the relationship between illustrious cultural geographer Doreen Massey and filmmaker Patrick Keiller. The second case study focuses on the longstanding relationship between cultural studies luminary Stuart Hall and filmmaker John Akomfrah, before and after his tenure as co-founder of Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998). These case studies illustrate the intellectual promise of interdiscipinary exchange as praxis, shaped by relations of affinity, reciprocity and duration.