Brian Jacobson

Brian Jacobson

@bleudeciel.bsky.social

The Cinema of Extractions (2025), Media Climates (2022), In the Studio (2020), Studios Before the System (2015) Writing about Art, Media, Energy, Environment. Next book: oil, gas, and media culture in France+empire Caltech Professor of Visual Culture

5.3K followers923 following144 posts

Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

People often ask me what I teach Caltech students in Visual Studies/Culture. This article describes a class about groundwater loss in California’s Central Valley and how we approach that issue from a variety of angles, including images and their history, and especially going to the valley to see it

magazine.caltech.eduCaltech Course Takes on Central Valley Water Issues — Caltech MagazineThis spring, students in the Visual Culture and the California Environment course took a field trip to immerse themselves in the landscapes they had been studying. By Katie Neith The Central Vall...
Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

Two decades ago I started working on the architecture and infrastructure of moving images. Didn’t put “infrastructure” in the title so it seems to have gotten lost in the era of keyword-search scholarship, but this was the first big product of that project cup.columbia.edu/book/studios...

cup.columbia.eduStudios Before the System | Columbia University PressBy 1915, Hollywood had become the epicenter of American filmmaking, with studio "dream factories" structuring its vast production. Filmmakers designed Hollyw... | CUP
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Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

This new book extends the project to more explicit connections between infrastructural forms and image forms, in part to ask what place visual/formal/textual analytic approaches have after the turn to what I call Raw Materialism cup.columbia.edu/book/the-cin...

cup.columbia.eduThe Cinema of Extractions | Columbia University PressFrom the petroleum used to make film stock to the carbon and tungsten needed for studio lights and theater projectors, every movie relies on extractive proce... | CUP
Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

call me humanist deadweight, but if you think it is an objectively logical and effective argument to equate how the humanities and sciences have, for centuries, shared a mission within the university with the 2000 AOL/Time Warner merger, you might need remedial humanities training, not "unyoking"

Brian Jacobson reposted

James Leo Cahill
@jamesleocahill.bsky.social

Discourse 46.3 is live! It features an absolutely essential piece reflecting on fascist times by Georges Didi-Huberman: "Why Obey?," skillfully translated by Heath Valentine from the short book Pour Quoi Obéir. Every piece in this issue is fantastic.

Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

Have we also been trained—and trained our grads—that we only have time to read books’ introductions, which are often available online? Why buy the book if you only “need” to read the first 25 pgs? We need a culture of deeper reading practices, but that seems antithetical to the academic horse race

Ken Wissoker @kwissoker.bsky.social

Here's a long thread on an issue dear to my heart. This Tuesday evening I’m doing an Intellectual Publics with Macarena Gomez-Barris on publishing. Like last year’s conversation with Denise Cruz, or the prior year’s with Racquel Gates, we will talk about how to find a publisher, turn a thesis... 1/

Brian Jacobson reposted

James Leo Cahill
@jamesleocahill.bsky.social

Okay LA... @bleudeciel.bsky.social is bringing the gang back together. Join us at Cal Tech on June 5-6 if you can, I'll be speaking on the 5th about Perut and Osnovikoff's Los Reyes, how to lie (down) like a dog, and the grundwerk of the great derangement of the senses.

Brian Jacobson@bleudeciel.bsky.social

LA-area folks, please join us next week, June 5-6, at Caltech, for a meeting of the Anthropocene Media Working Group with 2 days of talks and conversation. Details and registration here: www.hss.caltech.edu/news-and-eve...

Brian Jacobson reposted

Philip Leventhal
@philipleventhal.bsky.social

In an excellent interview w/ @thr.com, Brian Jacobson (@bleudeciel.bsky.social) talks about Hollywood's longstanding relationship to the oil industry and his new book, THE CINEMA OF EXTRACTIONS. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus... @columbiaup.bsky.social

hollywoodreporter.comHollywood Has Always Gushed About Fossil FuelsFrom the silent era to the oil-crazed '50s to today, the two industries have been inextricably linked, says the author of the book 'Cinema of Extractions.'

Brian Jacobson reposted

Philip Leventhal
@philipleventhal.bsky.social

"American cinema’s relationship to the climate crisis that threatens Hollywood ... w/ nearly annual bouts of dangerous wildfire is both deeply material and as old as film itself." -- Brian Jacobson (@bleudeciel.bsky.social), author of THE CINEMA OF EXTRACTIONS bit.ly/4ioli5I @columbiaup.bsky.social

bit.lyHollywood’s Climate Crisis A Very Short History Brian Jacobson - Columbia University Press BlogBrian Jacobson highlights how Hollywood's financialization and resource dependency have exacerbated ecological crises.
Brian Jacobson
@bleudeciel.bsky.social

In good company

Aurore Spiers@aurspiers.bsky.social

My #SCMS25 book haul!! Excited to dive into new (and new to me) works by Brian Jacobson @bleudeciel.bsky.social, Alison Griffiths, Tom Slater, Alyssa Lopez, Rielle Navitski, Jie Li, and more! @ucpress.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social @templeunivpress.bsky.social