Documenting World Politics - A Critical Companion to IR and Non-Fiction Film (Hardcover)

Documentaries such as "An Inconvenient Truth," "Countdown to Zero," "Inside Job," "Fahrenheit 9/11 "are powerful narratives through which political meaning is being produced, circulated and consumed on a global level .By casually treating the documentary genre as one among other visual forms, the discipline of IR risks cutting itself off from understanding the significance and complexity of this visual culture and the ways in which it encroaches on informed debates about global politics. The purpose of this book is to provide new vistas for grasping and using the genre of documentary film in the study and teaching of global politics.

Documenting World Politics introduces the genres and sub-genres of documentary film as they pertain to (the study of) world politics; by offering readings of specific films and types of films; as well as by providing interviews with directors. Together, these increase the reflexivity of IR scholars about the ways in which the increasingly popular medium of documentary represents and takes part in global politics. The contributors to this volume argue that much can be gained if we do not just think of documentaries as a window on or intervention in reality, but as a political epistemology that like theories involve particular postures, strategies and methodologies towards the world to which they provide access.

This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, popular culture and world politics and media studies alike. "