About this episode

In this bonus episode, cohosts interview Dr. Alice Lovejoy about her scholarship and new book on film manufacturing and its historical implications.

In this bonus episode, cohosts Jason Christian and Paul T. Klein interview the film historian Dr. Alice Lovejoy about her scholarship and her new book, Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War . The book examines the long and storied histories of the film manufacturing giants Kodak and Agfa and provides a materailst analysis of their involved in US and Germany imperialism around the world. Alice Lovejoy is a media and cultural historian and comparatist whose research examines governmental and institutional media, and media technologies, in transnational perspective. Her book Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (University of California Press, August 2025) is a history of film and the factories where it was made. Shifting focus between the United States, Germany, the Belgian Congo, and the Soviet Union, the book considers the military, colonial, and environmental implications of film's entanglement with the chemical industry. Lovejoy's first book, Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military (Indiana University Press, 2015), was named co-winner of the Modern Language Association's 2018 Aldo…

People in this episode

Hosts: Jason Christian, Paul T. Klein

Guest: Dr. Alice Lovejoy

Topics covered

• film history
• interview
• media studies
• imperialism
• chemical industry

Keywords

• film historian
• military
• colonialism
• environmental implications
• media technologies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of California Press, Indiana University Press

Books & works: Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War, Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military

Places: United States, Germany, Belgian Congo, Soviet Union

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