Welcome, readers, to The Anthem Handbook of Screen Theory! We cordially invite you to step inside, meander around and explore. Hopefully, as you open this collection, doors will open on both sides of the page, and we will enter into a conversation. We may not always agree, and we may not always even speak the same language, but we are all here because we (1) believe that critical thinking is important; (2) understand the sociocultural importance of screen media in the unfolding of the twenty- first century, and in the formation of the century that preceded it; and (3) are ready to explore new horizons and to carve new folds in the brain that meet the challenge of a world, of media apparatuses, and of social configurations that have changed radically since film theory was canonized some thirty years ago. As you will find central to the concerns of this book, from Francesco Casetti's Introduction essay to Tom Conley's Postface, we have entered into a highly mediated digital era that throws notions of the “filmic” and the “cinematic” largely into question, the traditional boundaries of medium specificity blurred by the convergent nature of this new wonderland of wireless signals, mobile screens and virtual windows. An era, simply put, of screens: screens in our town- squares and on our wrists, in our classrooms and on our dashboards, screens in outer space, underwater and in our pockets — a world of screens that problematizes the conventional notions both of the moving image and of the social function of cultural practice. These pages may not solve such debates, but we aim to equip readers to take part in them.

The contemporary film and media student emerges at a unique moment: the proliferation of digital technology is increasingly turning individuals into daily content providers and empowering global populations through communications networks, while also aiding the transnational flow of a borderless mainstream screen culture and, at the same time, prompting the emergence of local, small nation and counter- cinemas.