Books by Allan Cameron

With a Scottish professor of politics as his guide, a London-based Italian journalist traverses Scotland seeking a "e;big story"e; on the independence referendum. What he gets instead are small stories from myriad points of view: a Ukrainian nationalist, a Russian religious guru, an eccentric Estonian, an Algerian and a dying man, amongst many others. After a chaotic romance with a Scottish campaigner, the journalist, aptly named Cinico de Oblivii, leaves his post in London and moves to Greece where, reflecting on his time in Scotland, he writes a memoir (this book). Through his anecdotes we encounter the full spectrum of ideas on Scottish independence, including the ones Cinico's editor didn't want to publish. Beyond exploring Scotland's political scene and its place in Europe, Cinico's stories examine how Europeans interpret each other and, more generally, how people interrelate within a social context. Like Voltaire's Candide, Cinico starts with the dominant mindset of his era, which is incapable of bringing him either understanding or contentment, but ends up with an awareness that, though insufficient for the elusive happiness we all seek, is sufficient enough for a perfectly acceptable human existence.

'Visceral Screens argues eloquently for horror's centrality to essential debates in contemporary film and media studies theory. By framing horror beyond conventional notions of cautionary or anxious relations to media technologies, Allan Cameron presents a fascinating new account of horror as an 'intermediate' genre: between meanings encompassing bodies, images, and image-bodies.' Adam Lowenstein, University of Pittsburgh Horror cinema grants bodies and images a precarious hold on sense and order: from the zombie's gory disintegration to the shaky visuals of 'found footage' horror, and from the vampire's absent reflection to the spectacle of shattering glass in the Italian giallo. Addressing classic horror movies alongside popular and innovative contemporary works, Visceral Screens investigates how they have rendered the human form as a media artefact, dramatically dis-figuring it with optical effects, chromatic shifts, glitches and audiovisual fragmentation. Conducting their own anatomies of the screen, cutting into the matter of cinema, horror films revel in the breakdown of frames, patterns and figures, undermining subjectivity and meaning. Allan Cameron is Senior Lecturer in Media, Film and Television at the University of Auckland, New Zealand Cover image: Ana - Remix of Amer (2012), created by Ouananiche based on the feature film Amer (2009), directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, produced by Anonymes Films and Tobina Film. Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-1919-2 Barcode

A miscellaneous work consisting of three sections: aphorisms, essays and poetry. It deals with Scottish independence, the arts, religion, class in modern Britain, and host of other issues. Some overlap between the subject matter in the three sections, so the different approaches produce slightly different understandings.

Every era has invented a different idea of the 'classical' to create its own identity. Thus the 'classical' does not concern only the past: it is also concerned with the present and a vision of the future.