Prof. Ian AITKENProfessor Emeritus
iwaitken@associate.hkbu.edu.hk
Education:
PhD, University of Westminster
Area of Interests:
Film Studies / Documentary Film / Film Theory / Film History / Colonial Film Studies / Cinematic Realism
Major Highlights:
| 2020 | Aitken, I. (2020), Cinematic Realism: Lukacs, Kracauer and Theories of the Filmic Real. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press. |
| 2016 | Aitken, I. (ed.) (2016), The Major Realist Film Theorists: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. |
| 2015 | South and South-East Asia Documentary Film Research Website |
| 2014 | Aitken, I. and Ingham, M (2014), Hong Kong Documentary Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. |
| Aitken, I. (2014). ‘The Griersonian Influence and its Challenges: Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore’, in Williams and Druick (eds.), The Grierson Effect: The Worldwide Influence of John Grierson on the Development of Educational and Documentary Cinema. London: BFI. |
Read more ...
Major Publications
Books
| Cinematic Realism: Lukacs, Kracauer and Theories of the Filmic Real (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press. 2020) |
| The Major Realist Film Theorists: An Anthology. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016) |
| Hong Kong Documentary Film (contains two chapters by M. Ingham, six by Aitken) (Edinburgh University Press, 2014) (100,000 words) |
| Film and Reform: John Grierson and the Documentary Film Movement (Routledge, 2013) (Ist edition, 1990, 2nd edition 1992) (110,000 words) |
| Lukácsian Film Theory and Cinema: An Analysis of Georg Lukács’ Writings on Film 1913-1971 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2012) (140,000 words monograph) |
| Routledge Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies: Documentary Film (Editor) (London and New York: Routledge, 2012 (Sole editor) (NOT REFEREED). (This is one of the Routledge ‘Major Works’ series. It is a four volume edition of writings associated with the field of documentary film studies. In addition to acting as editor I have also written a 10,000 word ‘Introduction’) |
| The Routledge Concise Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film (London and New York: Routledge, 2012) (sole editor, 600,000 words). (10,000 word new ‘Introduction’ by IA) This is a completely re-edited version of the three-volume 2006, with several new entries and an original ‘Introduction’) |
| Realist Film Theory and Cinema: The Nineteenth-Century Lukácsian and Intuitionist Realist Traditions (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006) (130,000 word monograph) |
| Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, (sole editor) (New York: Routledge, 2006) (3 volumes, one million words) (Includes various entries by Aitken, including ‘Realism, Documentary Film and Philosophy’ (6,000 words) |
| Alberto Cavalcanti: Realism, Surrealism and National Cinemas (Flicks Books, 2001) (120,000 words) |
| European Film Theory and Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2001) (100,000 words) |
| The Documentary Film Movement: An Anthology (Edited and Introduced by Aitken, Ian, Edinburgh University Press, 1998) (Introduction 30,000 words) |
|
Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries |
| ‘The Griersonian Influence and its Challenges: Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore’, in Williams and Druick (eds.), The Grierson Effect: The Worldwide Influence of John Grierson on the Development of Educational and Documentary Cinema. (London: BFI, 2014) |
| ‘The Grierson Tradition’. in Winston (ed.), Handbook of Documentary Film. (London and New York: British Film Institute, 2013) |
| Aitken, I., and Ingham, M., ‘Official, Public-Broadcast and Independent Documentary Film in Hong Kong’. in Marchetti, Cheung and Yao (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Hong Kong Film. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2013) |
| “What is There Really in the World?” Forms of Theory, Evidence and Truth in Fahrenheit 9/11: A Philosophical and Intuitionist Realist Approach’, in Buckland, Warren (ed.) Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies (Routledge, AFI Series, 2009) (Book chapter) |
| Various pieces of writing for the British Film Institute and National Film Archive, included in major new DVD releases of important British documentary films: We Live in Two Worlds (2008) and If War Should Come (2009) (NOT REFEREED) |
| ‘European Film Studies’, in Donald (Sydney), Renov (UCLA) and Fuery (London) (eds.) The Handbook of Film Studies (Sage, 2008) 12,000 words (Book chapter) |
| `La Terre and Pictorialist Naturalism’, in Fowler/Helfield (eds.) Representations of the Rural: Space, Place and Identity in Films About the Land (Wayne State University Press, 2007) (Book chapter) |
| ‘European Documentary Film, in the Encyclopedia of Europe 1914-2004 (New York: Charles Scribner, 2006) (Encyclopedia entry) |
| Various entries on British documentary film in McFarlane, Brian (ed.) Encyclopedia of British Film (Methuen/British Film Institute, 2004) |
| `John Grierson', in the New Dictionary of National Biography. (2004) |
| Various entries on documentary film in British Film Institute, Screen-on-line, national electronic resource (2004) (NOT REFEREED) |
| `The Post Office Reaches All Branches of Life: Representations of Work and Organizations in the Films of the British Documentary Film Movement', in Hassard, John (ed.) Organisation and Representation (Sage, 1998) (Book chapter) |
| `John Grierson and the British Documentary Film Movement', in Robert Murphy (ed.) The British Cinema Book (BFI, 1997, 2001) (Book chapter) |
| `European Cinema and Globalisation', in Everett (ed.) European Identity in Cinema (Intellect Press, 1996) (Book chapter) |
|
Journal Articles |
| ‘The Television Documentary Films of Hong Kong’s Two Terrestrial Broadcasters: ATV and TVB’, Studies in Documentary Film, 2015, 9: 2, 95-113. |
| ‘British Governmental Institutions, the Regional Information Office in Singapore, and the use of the official film in Malaya and Singapore, 1948-1961’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2015. 35: 1, 27-52. |
| ‘Lukács’ Late Aesthetic Model of Cinematic Realism’. New Review of Film and Television Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3, July 2013. |
| ‘The Development of Official Film-making in Hong Kong’. Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol. 32, No. 4, December 2012, pp. 531-551. |
| ‘Physical Reality: The Role of the Empirical in the Film Theory of Siegfried Kracauer, John Grierson, André Bazin and Georg Lukács’, Studies in Documentary Film, Vol.1, No.2, 2007, pp. 105-21. |
| ‘The European Realist Film Tradition’, Studies in European Cinema Vol. 3 No. 3, 2006, pp.175-188. |
| `Kracauer and Surrealism’, Screen, Vol. 39, N. 2 (Summer 1998), pp. 124-40 |
| `Formalism and Realism: Two Film Versions of Henry V', Critical Survey, (1991) |
| `John Grierson, Idealism and the Inter-war Period', Historical Journal of Film Radio and TV, vol. 9, no.3, (1989), pp. 247-258. |
|
Honours, Awards and Prizes |
| Hong Kong Baptist University, President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Scholarly Work within the University (2013) |
| Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Communication: ‘Award for Outstanding Performance in Scholarly Work’ (2009/2010) |
| Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Communication: ‘Award for Outstanding Performance in Scholarly Work’ (2006/7) |
| Dartmouth Medal, presented to the Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film for the ‘Outstanding Reference Work of the Year, by the American Libraries Association (2006) |