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Abstract
This article analyzes the unique historical collaboration between the revolutionary Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), the cultural psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), and the founder of contemporary neuropsychology, Alexander Luria (1902–1977). Vygotsky's legacy is associated primarily with the idea that cultural mediation plays a crucial role in the emergence and development of personality and cognition. His collaborator, Luria, laid the foundations of contemporary neuropsychology and demonstrated that cultural mediation also changes the functional architecture of the brain. In my analysis, I demonstrate how the Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria collaboration exemplifies a strategy of productive triangulation that harnesses three disciplinary perspectives: those of cultural psychology, neuropsychology, and film theory and practice.
Contributor Notes
Julia Vassilieva is Senior Research Fellow based in Film and Screen Studies, School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. She is working on a project entitled “Cinema and the Brain: The Eisenstein-Vygotsky-Luria Collaboration,” which is supported by the Australian Research Council. She is the author of Narrative Psychology: Identity, Transformation, and Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and coeditor of After Taste: Cultural Value and the Moving Image (Routledge, 2013). Her articles have been published in Camera Obscura, Film-Philosophy, Film Criticism, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Screening the Past, Critical Arts, Kinovedcheskie Zapiski, Rouge, Lola, Senses of Cinema, History of Psychology and a number of edited collections. Email: julia.vassilieva@monash.edu