Jacob Engelberg
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jacobengelberg.bsky.social
Jacob Engelberg
@jacobengelberg.bsky.social
660 followers 700 following 35 posts
asst. professor of film, media, & culture at University of Amsterdam | author of 𝘊𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘉𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 (Duke U.P., January 2026) | bisexual saboteur | he/his

https://linktr.ee/jacob.engelberg
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jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i have a blurb! dukeupress.edu/cinemas-of-b...
On the left-hand side of the image is the cover to the book Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression by Jacob Engelberg, which depicts an image from Basic Instinct, featuring Sharon Stone looking at the camera beside two other figures who are turned away. Below the book cover it reads: "January 2026. 352 pages. Film/Queer theory. Rights: World." To the right of this is the following text: "Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression JACOB ENGELBERG In Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression, Jacob Engelberg makes the case for radically recalibrating queer film studies, taking as a starting point those cinematic figures who resist categorization within the gay-straight binary. Engelberg's engagement with bisexual transgression on film illuminates the mutability and instability of sexuality, and of sociocultural structures more broadly by resisting the censure of images as politically harmful as well as the celebration of transgression as inherently subversive. Instead, Engelberg understands bisexual transgression as a process whereby sociocultural rules are made knowable by being contested. From 1970s vampire films to 1990s erotic thrillers, from lesbian imaginings of female bisexuality to European art cinema's reckonings with HIV/AIDS, bisexual figures on film embody anxieties around the precarity of binary sexuality while revealing the contingencies of sexuality's cinematic signification. Revivifying the underexploited contributions of bisexual theory, Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression proposes a new mode of film theorization and analysis that examines the rich space between and beyond dominant categories of sexual organization, where sexual unpredictability, the allure of the forbidden, and the precarity of sexual signification are illuminated. Jacob Engelberg is Assistant Professor of Film, Media, and Culture at the University of Amsterdam."
September 24, 2025 at 6:33 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i'm very happy to share these endorsements for my forthcoming book, CINEMAS OF BISEXUAL TRANSGRESSION. it means the world to have such generous words from scholars i respect so deeply.
Half the background is a purply sheen. The other half features someone standing with another person's arm around their waist and an unclothed limb at the bottom. In the foreground of the lefthand side is the following text: "Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression revitalizes bisexuality screen scholarship by bringing critically deft, contextually rich, politically attuned evidence of its enduring indispensability and expanding urgency for queer media studies...Engelberg deepens our understandings of bisexuality's disruptive power and imaginative potential, while simultaneously staking out innovative theoretical-philosophical pathways and invaluable alliances with feminist, trans, and critical race studies." - Maria San Filippo, author of The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television The righthand side of the background is a purply sheen. The lefthand side is the face of Sharon Stone playing Catherine in the film Basic Instinct. To her left is the back of a blonde woman wearing a hooped earring. There is text on the righthand side of the image that reads: "Jacob Engelberg addresses an under-researched area in queer cinema studies with an impressive theoretical sophistication. His keen knowledge of film history and generous interventions in queer theory, film theory, and the bisexual film canon make this book the most comprehensive, considered, and thoughtful analysis of bisexuality in visual culture I have encountered. I'm frankly delighted by it." — Maria Pramaggiore, co-editor of Film: A Critical Introduction, 4th edition Towards the righthand side of the background is a person in a tank top manipulating something in their hands. In front of them is someone with their back turned. The lefthand side of the frame is a purply sheen. The text above it reads: "Jacob Engelberg lets the sexual body breathe.... Delivering new insights into the erotic life of mass culture, this book also reconceives bisexuality...as a tenacious sign of the unknowability of the bodies we crave and those we inhabit, on screen and off. This is a richly textured, subtle, and erudite engagement with the mass cultural archive, and a promising debut from an emerging critical voice, that resounds with a particular clarity and a rangy ambition." — Grace E. Lavery, author of Closures: Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom
September 9, 2025 at 3:33 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
my chapter on one of the first instalments of the 80s bi video boom: BI-COASTAL (1985) is now available! featured in the wonderful SCREENING ADULT FILM, edited by ‪‪@ffreibert.bsky.social‬, Peter Alilunas, & Desirae Embree. ask your library to buy it! www.routledge.com/Screening-Ad...
a screen grab of a title image, presenting the title "Bi-Coastal" with an outline of the mainland US in an illustration behind it. this floats above a blurry cityscape a medium close up shot, two white men with dark hair look at each other while one blonde woman looks up at one of them the front cover of a book with the following text on it. "SCREENING CINEMA. SCREENING ADULT CINEMA. Edited by FARRAH FREIBERT, PETER ALILUNAS, and DESIRAE EMBREE." This text appears over a red background, and beside the editors names is the logo for the publisher Routledge. In the top half of the cover, a brown-skinned person with shaved sides of their head and a nose ring operates a camera. a screenshot of the first page of a chapter. It reads: 18. BI-COASTAL (1985). Jacob Engelberg. DOI: 10.4324/9781003276302-18. There is a fleeting moment in Linda Williams's influential article "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess" in which she references a rapidly proliferating pornographic subgenre. "There is a new category of video called bisexual," Williams announces, before detailing its definitional conventions: "Men do it with women, women do it with men, men do it with men and then all do it with one another, in the process breaking down a fundamental taboo against male-to-male sex." First published in 1991, Williams's article arrived six years after the explosion of a subgenre calling itself bisexual video. Whereas depictions of female bisexuality have been present in straight pornographic films since the earliest days of stag (and continue to this day), depictions of male bisexuality have been fewer. "Bisexual" would thus come to name an industrial category whose sine qua non was the depiction of men having sex with both women and men. This chapter considers one of the formative releases of the early bisexual video boom: Tom DeSimone's Bi-Coastal (1985). The video follows Jill (Cara Lott), who has traveled, bicoastally, from Chicago to Los Angeles to meet her boyfriend Nick (Tico Patterson).
August 31, 2025 at 5:14 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
delighted that i can now share the cover of my forthcoming monograph 𝘊𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘉𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯. released 6 Jan 2026 with @dukepress.bsky.social in the Camera Obscura series.
June 17, 2025 at 11:38 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
a nice thing about dutch academia is a copyright amendment that allows for the open publication of short scholarly works 6 months after their initial publication. this means that my chapter on Call Me by Your Name is now freely accessible! you can find it in the URL on my profile.
Text that reads: "Taverne Amendment. The Taverne Amendment allows researchers to share the final published version (Version of Record) of short scientific works via the institutional repository after an embargo period, even if they were published behind a paywall. "The maker of a short scientific work, the research for which has been paid for in whole or in part by Dutch public funds, shall be entitled to make that work available to the public for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work." (Dutch Copyright Act 2015) Together, Dutch universities have decided to interpret 'short scientific work' as journal articles, proceedings papers and book chapters, and 'a reasonable period of time' as six months." the title page of the chapter, reading: "10. Call Me Bi Any Other Name: Anal Monstration, Formal Bisexualization, Gay Indigestion. Jacob Engelberg." a frame from the film Call Me by Your Name. Elio leans against the car and watches Oliver kissing Chiara. a frame from the film Call Me by Your Name. Elio looks up from Marzia's crotch as they have sex.
April 16, 2025 at 7:35 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
RIP Linda Williams. we've lost an intellectual giant whose debts to film studies & pornography studies can never be repaid. i'm grateful that she got her flowers before she passed, with a symposium & special issue honouring her work in recent years. long may her writing be taught in our classrooms.
a young woman (Susan Kohner) clutches a casket adorned with flowers, crying. from Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959)
March 13, 2025 at 8:18 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
119 film and media scholars from 61 institutions across 16 countries have written to Travis Bell (The Movie Database) and Matthew Buchanan (Letterboxd) to make the case to reinstate early moving image works in their catalogues. Thank you to everyone who signed.
A letter that reads the following: Petition from scholars of film and media to reinstate early moving image works on TMDB and Letterboxd 13 March 2025 Dear Travis Bell (TMDB) and Matthew Buchanan (Letterboxd), We are scholars of film and media writing to you as representatives of The Movie Database (TMDB) and Letterboxd to express our dismay at the decision taken by TMDB to remove photographic motion studies/chronophotography from its database. Following an update in February 2025, TMDB’s New Content Bible began listing “photographic motion studies (chronophotography)” among the list of types of content not allowed in the database. Shortly thereafter, these works began to be removed from the database. We are writing to request that this decision be reversed. TMDB and Letterboxd, which uses the former’s database, are preeminent resources in film cataloging, used globally by millions each year. Up until recently, one of the great advantages of this database has been the extensive number of entries documenting early moving-image experiments by the likes of Charles Comte, Georges Demenÿ, Étienne-Jules Marey, and Eadweard Muybridge, among others. Whereas TMDB’s New Content Bible, in its justification of these works’ removal, draws attention to the fact that there are over 100,000 works by Muybridge, we fail to see how this renders them unsuitable for the database. Instead, such a figure only reveals the extensivity of these moving-image works and encourages curiosity around them. We are well aware of the debates around when cinema can be said to have begun, what constitutes film, and the disagreements that persist on these topics. Rather than act as the arbiter of what among early moving-image cultures constitutes film and what does not, we urge you to take a more capacious approach. Such an approach would be in line with TMDB’s ethos as a “community built” endeavour and Letterboxd’s articulation of itself as a network for “ grass-roots film discussion and discovery”; t… Sincerely, 1. Richard Abel, Emeritus Professor, University of Michigan Ann Arbor 2. Dr. Leslie Abramson 3. Prof. François Albera, Université de Lausanne 4. Lauren Alberque, film archivist, Kimbell Art Museum 5. Yousef Alghawi, University of Southern California 6. Jacopo Barbero, University of Amsterdam 7. Dr. Cory Barker, Penn State University 8. Prof. Martin Barnier, Université Lumière Lyon2 France 9. Giorgio Bertellini, University of Michigan 10. Erica Biolchini, University of Amsterdam 11. Assoc. Prof. Amy E. Borden, Portland State University 12. Marta Braun, Emeritus Professor and Director, Toronto Metropolitan University 13. Quin Bright 14. Dr. Cüneyt Çakırlar, Nottingham Trent University 15. Nick Carbone, New York Public University 16. Diana Cardenas, UCLA Film & Television Archive 17. Prof. Erica Carter, King’s College London 18. Bárbara Carvalho, CESEM/NOVA University of Lisbon 19. Barbara Cattaneo, Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence 20. Asst. Prof. Palita Chunsaengcha, University of Minnesota 21. Laurel Day, George Blood LP 22. Asst. Prof. Doğa Çöl, Istanbul Medipol University 23. Prof. Allison Cooper, Bowdoin College 24. Dr. Keith Dando 25. Prof. Nicholas de Villiers, University of North Florida 26. Eileen DiPofi, University of Southern California 27. Prof. Kevin Donnelly, University of Southampton 28. Stephanie Dykes 29. Desirae Embree, Texas A&M University 30. Dr. Jacob Engelberg, University of Amsterdam 31. Dan Erdman, Media Burn 32. Dr. Victor Fan, King’s College London 33. Dr. Kathy Feeley, University of Redlands 34. Augustin Ferrari Braun, University of Amsterdam 35. Assoc. Prof. Allyson Nadia Field, University of Chicago 36. Asst. Prof. Roberto Filippello, University of Amsterdam 37. Dr. Ian Fleishman, University of Pennsylvania 38. Dr. Charles Forceville, Universiteit van Amsterdam 39. Dr. John Fullerton, Emeritus Professor, Stockholm University 40. Luis Alonso García, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos 41. Dr. Philippa Gates, Laurier University 42. Dr… 47. Prof. em. Thomas Gunning, University of Chicago 48. James Haberl, Niles North High School 49. Dr. Gert Jan Harkema, University of Amsterdam 50. Benjamin Harry, Brigham Young University 51. Sarah Hartzell, The Ohio State University 52. Mirko Heinemann 53. Prof. Maggie Hennefeld, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 54. Scott Higgins, Wesleyan University 55. William E. Hill III 56. Prof. Laura Horak, Carleton University 57. Amanda Howard, CA, University of Arizona Libraries 58. Prof. Daniel Humphrey, Texas A&M University 59. Dr. Rhys Steven Jones, University of Amsterdam 60. Tien-Tien Jong, University of Chicago 61. Tara D. Kelley, Rutgers University 62. Dr. Laurence Kent, University of Bristol 63. Jane Keranen, University of Chicago 64. Susan Kerns, PhD, Milwaukee Film 65. Prof. em. Dr. Frank Kessler, Utrecht University 66. Ben Kiem, University of Toronto 67. Dr. N.H. de Klerk, Utrecht University/Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History, Wien 68. Katerina Korola, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 69. Reto Kromer, AV preservation by reto.ch 70. Prof. Thomas Lamarre, University of Chicago 71. Christine Lamy 72. Mary Lane 73. Dr. Michael Lawrence, University of Sussex 74. Dr. S. Lenk, Philipps-University Marburg 75. Jim Leonard 76. Kristin Lipska, Prelinger Archives 77. Loiseau, freelance researcher 78. Hugo Ljungbäck, University of Chicago 79. Letícia Magalhães 80. Dr. Cat Mahoney, University of Liverpool 81. Anne-Marie Malthête-Quévrain, Cinémathèque Méliès 82. Andronika Martonova, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 83. Michael Mazzacane 84. Dr. Robert J. Mills, University of Southampton 85. Juliëtte Molenaars, Universiteit van Amsterdam 86. Prof. Daniel Morgan, University of Chicago 87. Charles Musser, Yale University 88. Gary Needham, University of Liverpool 89. Arcadio Andrea Oranday, University of Chicago 90. Prof. Federico Pierotti, University of Lausanne 91. Eric Pitz, UCLA 92. D Plumer 93. Prof. Karen Redrobe, University of Pen… 94. Valentine Robert, Maîtresse d'enseignement et de recherche, University of Lausanne 95. Steve Ruffin 96. Daniel Sánchez Salas, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos 97. Kendra Lee Sanders, University of Chicago 98. Dr. Maria San Filippo 99. Michael Seeber 100. Dr. Martha Shearer, University College Dublin 101. Dr. Elyse Singer, City University of New York 102. Dr. Thomas Slater, Indiana University of Pennsylvania 103. Dr. Hannah Spaulding, University of Liverpool 104. PD Dr. Simon Spiegel, University of Zurich 105. Prof. Aurore Spiers, Texas A&M University 106. Dr. Katherine Spring, Wilfrid Laurier University 107. Distinguished Prof. Shelley Stamp, University of California, Santa Cruz 108. Prof. dr. Eliza Steinbock, Maastricht University 109. Alex Thelen 110. Dr. Michael L. Thomas, University of Amsterdam 111. Maria Tortajada, Professeur ordinaire, Université de Lausanne 112. Prof. Yannis Tzioumakis, University of Liverpool 113. Prof. em. William Uricchio, MIT 114. Dr. Tjalling Valdés Olmos, University of Amsterdam 115. Dr. Gwendolyn Waltz, independent scholar 116. Vanessa Weller, Michigan State University 117. Dr. Grant Wiedenfeld, Sam Houston State University 118. Dr. Maryn Wilkinson, University of Amsterdam 119. Prof. Michael Williams, University of Southampton
March 13, 2025 at 7:33 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
attention film & media scholars! last month, The Movie Database, whose catalogue populates Letterboxd, removed hundreds of early moving image works in a new content policy. read why my colleagues & i think this is a mistake in our open letter. please consider signing: forms.gle/zCyZt9fMwYcj...
a man in a top hat plays with a jumping dog a nude man walks flies a man shot-putting
March 3, 2025 at 8:23 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i'm in humbling company in @cuneytcakirlar.bsky.social's wonderful edited collection 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳: 𝘍𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴. my chapter looks at invocations of the dybbuk across postmillennial cinemas beyond the Anglosphere. get your library to order it! doi.org/10.2307/jj.2...
the front cover of a book entitled, Transnational Horror: Folklore, Genre, and Cultural Politics. Edited by Cüneyt Çakırlar. A woman in a wedding dress reaches towards the neck of a man in a suit. From the film Demon (2015). a man wearing a kippah and a shawl hands a piece of jewellery to another man. from the film Ezra / എസ്ര (2017)
February 25, 2025 at 6:14 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
sites posing as film journalism that are actually just AI bots can be quite entertaining
February 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
gutted to learn that The Movie Database, which populates @letterboxd.social, has banned early motion studies. this is frustrating not just as someone who added dozens of Marey, Demenÿ, and Comte films to the database, but because it stifles efforts to bring early film history to a wider audience
a bullet-pointed list showing some of the material banned: • Al generated movies (for example deepfake content). • Audio-only content including audiobooks, narrative podcasts, radio dramas, and audio movies (e.g. Bullit et Riper). • exception: motion comics are allowed. • Filmed podcasts or radio shows • Blu-ray Pure Audio Discs • [highlighted] Photographic motion studies (chronophotography) [highlight ends]- for example the over 100,000 works by Eadweard Muybridge. • Online courses (Masterclass or internal university classes)
February 23, 2025 at 1:55 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i'm delighted to have contributed to the new Wiley-Blackwell collection A COMPANION TO INGMAR BERGMAN, edited by @danielhumphrey.bsky.social & Hamish Ford. my chapter is "Bisexuality, Neurosis, & Fantasies of the Caribbean in Ansikte mot ansikte". Check it out onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
the front cover of a book called A Companion to Ingmar Bergman, featuring a picture of the director. a frame from the film FACE TO FACE. a woman closes her eyes with her mouth open, her head and hand resting in someone's lap. the subtitles read: "What would you say if I dropped my hand to fondle between your legs?" a frame from the film FACE TO FACE. a man looks downwards while a woman looks at him. the subtitles read: "I've heard one can lead a wonderful life of vice in Jamaica."
February 5, 2025 at 8:08 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
this year’s first & last
January 1, 2025 at 12:11 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i was delighted to contribute to LSE HE Blog's exploration of academic life on film. I discuss the overconfident ornithologist of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963), and other film scholars discuss an eclectic range of examples, from Streisand's THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (1996) to Martino's TORSO (1973)!
December 13, 2024 at 11:03 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
catching up on some yiddish cinema
November 30, 2024 at 7:12 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
i see i’m in good company among the SCMS rejects this year
November 26, 2024 at 11:49 AM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
a warm welcome chez @garyneedham.bsky.social
November 22, 2024 at 4:53 PM
jacobengelberg.bsky.social
hi i'm new here 👀
November 16, 2024 at 9:31 AM