Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
In this video, I discuss two distinct approaches to the analysis of artworks: poetics and hermeneutics. I'm drawing the distinction from Jonathan Culler's book Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. First, I provide examples of the difference between poetics and hermeneutics by analyzing a clip from the film The Shining (Kubrick, 1980). Then, I look more broadly at where poetics-centric and hermeneutics-centric analysis occurs in academic film studies and in YouTube film analysis. Some topics I examine include "hermeneutics of suspicion," the relationship between hermeneutics and "symptomatic reading," and the relationship between poetics and "formal" analysis. Texts mentioned include David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art, Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," "John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln" by the editors of Cahiers du Cinema, and Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler.
For the video on Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation:" youtu.be/kYINwG7l17s
For the video that discusses "symptomatic reading" in more depth: youtu.be/WYHLAw9ddkk
In this video, I discuss two distinct approaches to the analysis of artworks: poetics and hermeneutics. I'm drawing the distinction from Jonathan Culler's book Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. First, I provide examples of the difference between poetics and hermeneutics by analyzing a clip from the film The Shining (Kubrick, 1980). Then, I look more broadly at where poetics-centric and hermeneutics-centric analysis occurs in academic film studies and in YouTube film analysis. Some topics I examine include "hermeneutics of suspicion," the relationship between hermeneutics and "symptomatic reading," and the relationship between poetics and "formal" analysis. Texts mentioned include David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art, Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," "John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln" by the editors of Cahiers du Cinema, and Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler.
For the video on Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation:" youtu.be/kYINwG7l17s
For the video that discusses "symptomatic reading" in more depth: youtu.be/WYHLAw9ddkk
