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T o say that the arts no longer occupy a central place in the North American mind is to state the obvious. Dreams fostered by commerce ’s romance with technology have long since supplanted the arts in North Americans’ imaginations. Historical forces that arose in the Renaissance and acquired additional strength in the Enlightenment now have entered into an astonishingly unlikely association with novel authoritarian currents of our time, unleashed by another “awakening.” Universities , by and large, have proven impotent in resisting these dire trends, and many of those who are charged with the responsibility of defending the life of the mind have shown themselves to be quislings. The limits of the social have been allowed to circumscribe understanding’s reach. This is an age when academics for the most part don’t read Plato, Virgil, Aquinas, Milton, or Spinoza (nor listen to J.S. Bach or Thomas Tallis)—and, what is worse, when academics condemn those among their colleagues who do, for being irrelevant. The ironies of history are legion. I remind myself of the fact when melancholy brings me to ponder the appalling conditions under which I began work on this volume—conditions that persisted nearly until I had completed it. The less said about those conditions, the better. However, a heart full of gratitude compels me to acknowledge the solace many afforded. Michael Snow, Jonas Mekas, and Stan Brakhage have all taken an interest in my writing and in my filmmaking. I wish that Stan Brakhage were here to read ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xxxi this work, which he so often inquired after and for which he ventured so many suggestions. Jo Ann Mackie’s, Prof. Don Snyder’s, and Dr. Maurice Yeates’s many kindnesses helped sustain me. Dr. Susan Cody stepped in several times to prevent a bad situation from becoming unbearable. I have been very fortunate that a remarkable group of young artist/filmmakers have been drawn to my classes and to working on my projects. Those who assisted in this project (in the order in which they joined) are: Jowita Kepa,Annie MacDonell, Samantha Rajasingham , and Luba Galvanek.All showed unflagging persistence in tracking down nigh impossible-to-find sources. I enjoyed discussions with them and, with them, poring over selections from my collection of art books. As great a source of delight has been to find oneself joined in the belief in the human value of artmaking by a number of talented artist/scholars who are utterly committed to avant-garde cinema. Over the past few years, such a group have come to occupy an ever larger place in my thoughts, so that now I don’t know how I could have survived a dreadful period without them. It has been such a great pleasure to see them at nearly all my screenings and public lectures and seminars.Their insistence on attending my classes (whether they were officially enrolled or not) gave me faith that, however harrowing my circumstances , I was reaching some with ears to hear.Alla Gadassik,Angela Joosse, Erika Loic, and Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof have enriched my life enormously, by making me believe that, somehow, the art of film will survive, just because it can attract the likes of them. Working with them has enlarged my heart. It is routine for academics’ acknowledgement pages to discharge the obligation of recognizing any funding that supported their work. In mentioning that I received support for my work on this volume from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, I do not want to be mistaken for doing just that. For I want to express my deepest thanks for the opportunities that SSHRC made possible. SSHRC’s support (and the high ranking their assessment panel gave this project) did much to rally my faith that I would be able to endure the onslaught I faced when I embarked on this project. In addition , support that that agency, and the Canada Council for the Arts, provided for my filmmaking and my work in software engineering has meant more to me than I can ever say. Ryerson University, through the Office of Research Services and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Design, also provided generous financial assistance, in the form of project grants, stipends for student assistants, a publication grant, and a research chair that helped shelter me. The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds...

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