It is important to start by thanking those who were most directly responsible for making this project possible. I really only started to think seriously about the history of film theory while writing an entry for The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory. I am immensely grateful to Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland for inviting me to make that contribution and firmly believe that that was the primary catalyst for this book. I am thankful to everyone at Routledge for their guidance and support as well as their patience and understanding. Siobhan Poole initiated the project and directed it through its early stages. Natalie Foster and then Sheni Kruger took over and guided it to its completion. Sheni Kruger and Emma Sherriff are responsible for putting the second edition into motion. I greatly appreciate their hard work and support in keeping everything going forward.
Since completing the first edition of Film Theory: The Basics, I have had time to think about the many other friends and supporters who were equally important in its gestation, even if they initially went unacknowledged. I want to belatedly thank those who were missed before. I also want to reiterate my gratitude for those who deserve repeated recognition for their nonstop support. From my time at Berkeley, I want to thank Kathleen Moran and Charlie Bertsch. They were among the first to invite ongoing conversations and encouraged me to continue forward. Charlie Bertsch in particular has had the kind of influence that radiates across time. Bill Nichols and Jenny Lau, at San Francisco State, and Rick Altman and Louis-Georges Schwartz, at Iowa, were tasked with providing much-needed institutional direction despite my having very little sense of where I was going. They always managed to do so with a combination of intellectual vigor and exceptional patience. Friends along the way, especially at Iowa, were of the utmost importance. I am thankful to Jennifer Fleeger, Joe Klapper, Jonah Horowitz, Claudia Pummer, Andrew Ritchey, Margaret Schwartz, Peter Shaefer, Gerald Sim, and Erica Stein for their camaraderie and commitment to mutual support. Ofer Eliaz has been an especially important source of encouragement. His theoretical sophistication and wry sense of humor are deeply appreciated.
My largest debt is owed to my two closest friends and immediate family. Ben Stork and Kris Fallon have offered their unconditional support for many, many years. They have repeatedly read and commented on drafts for this project, sharing, or at least entertaining, my interest in theory while always offering sound advice whenever things seem to bog down. They have been an indispensable part of this work, and if there is anything useful here it is because of them. Every word of kindness that I have said here should be said again about my partner, Gina Giotta. The difference, however, is that her support extends to every other part of life and in so doing she makes it all that much better. Like Gina, my sisters, Tricia and Krista, combine loving support with unending solidarity, providing encouragement along with moments of reprieve that keep everything in perspective. My mom, Joanne, always likes to say that any book smarts that I have were thanks to my dad. But I like to think that this book has a lot more to do with hard work and a sense of responsibility to others, things for which she serves as a preeminent example. I am thankful to her for this and everything else.
There are always many others who also deserve acknowledgment. I might sum up some of this oblique appreciation by mentioning the importance of 142 Dwinelle Hall, the classroom where I first encountered film theory in Fall 1996 at the same time, unbeknownst to me, that film theory was supposedly gasping its last breaths. The professor, Anne Nesbet, maybe in a long forgotten aside, compared this classroom to a cave-like enclosure where theories danced about with the same beguiling allure that the shadows had once had in Plato’s memorable allegory. Fittingly, that classroom is no longer there, at least not in the way that it was when I was there. Much of its influence, however, persists, and, perhaps, its many shadows will continue to dance while film theory lies in wait for what remains an unlikely future.