Introduction: reading and writing the frame

This introduction to a collection of eleven articles examines how notions of the'frame' and of'framing' bring together contemporary critical and theoretical preoccupations with the question of borders and boundaries (inclusion and exclusion, the intrinsic and extrinsic), the relationship between inside and outside, and marginality. A brief analysis of Michael Haneke¹s film 'Caché' (2005) is used to bring out different ways in which the 'frame¹ can function both literally and metaphorically within a filmic context, but also in the critical theoretical discourses noted above. A survey of various dictionary definitions in French and English serves to bring out the multiple, complex meanings of the 'frame' or 'cadre', and is followed by an examination of the function of the frame within theoretical discourses, and their exploration of its ambiguous, undecidable status. This section focuses on and compares Derrida¹s writings on 'parergonality' with Genette¹s works on 'paratextuality'. A final part of the introduction examines the use of 'framing' as a critical tool, both as an essential part of methodologies which construct an 'object of study', and as a theme or formal mechanism which may be analysed within such an 'object', and provides a detailed introduction to the different sections of the volume and essays to follow