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FMST 322 - History of Film Since 1959
This course offers a comprehensive examination of contemporary world cinema from a range of cultural and critical perspectives. The purpose is to analyze film styles and practices of different countries from the late 1950s until today, considered in their specific contexts, as well as in relation to the aesthetic and theoretical issues that they raise. The focus is on films and themes that help students understand how the notion of “new cinema” has become established as a critical category and what artistic forms and cultural movements it has been associated with during the past fifty years.
FMST 329 - Women and Film
Women and Film explores women’s roles within different periods and film forms, including classical, avant-garde, art house, non-Western, mainstream, independent and auteur-oriented cinemas. The course also provides an overview of feminist approaches to the presence and the representation of women in film and other audiovisual forms. Women and Film is divided into three parts. In the first, we will consider women’s contribution to the history of filmmaking as directors, producers, writers, and actresses. In the second, we will examine gender-related issues in films made by women filmmakers or which foreground female characters and issues. In the third, we will concentrate on feminist readings and women’s appropriations of film genres typical of mainstream or male-dominant contexts of filmic production and reception, including the Hollywood melodrama, the slasher film, and the pornographic film.
FMST 409 - Seminar in Women and Film: Women’s cinema since the 1990’s
This seminar examines women’s film practices and feminist approaches to cinema since the 1990’s, from within an international context. An important goal of this course is to analyze films by women filmmakers and/or relevant to women’s issues which have broadened the definition of women’s cinema. Finally, the course proposes an overview of women’s contributions to filmmaking and film theory from diasporic, non-Western, and post-colonial perspectives.
The first part of the seminar concentrates on women’s position in the cinema within the cultural framework of post feminism. The second part explores the notion of women’s cinema as “minor” cinema and the film practices and cultural positions to which this definition is relevant. Students’ presentations and a roundtable on post feminism and its impact on women film directors working in mainstream cinema, as well as independent or international art house film circuits, complement and conclude the first two sections of the seminar. The third examines films by women film directors whose work addresses issues of cultural identity from anti-state, sub-national, non-Western, and post-colonial perspectives.
FMST 335 - Aspects of National Cinema: New Directions in Contemporary European Cinema
This course proposes an overview of European cinema since the 1980s, with specific focus on:
- Changes in national and trans-national film systems and industries.
- Cultural identity in 1980s and 1990s European films.
- New film aesthetics in European cinema.
FMST 615 - Topics in European Cinema Special Topic: Western European Cinemas since 1980
This course is an introduction to Western European film practices of the past twenty years, a period characterized by the crisis of Europe’s national film industries and the emergence of alternative modes of production and distribution, as well as aesthetic trends. The seminar is also designed to examine recent scholarly approaches to Western European cinemas.
FMST 625 - Methods in Film Studies: Women and Silent Cinema
Women and Silent Cinema examines women’s film practices in the early and silent phases of cinema, from within an international context. The seminar proposes an overview of women’s contributions to the first four decades of cinema, including their involvement in film practices and enterprises, their representation in various film forms and genres, their roles in various phases and areas of cinema’s establishment as a social and cultural activity, as well as their participation in the socio-cultural contexts that marked the emergence of cinema as a new medium and industry.
The course also offers a vast selection of the literature on early and silent cinemas concentrating on gender-specific and feminist issues, which samples some of the most innovative and interesting research lately produced in the discipline of film studies.
In 2004, students had the unique opportunity to become acquainted with the most recent developments in this scholarship at the international congress “Women and the Silent Screen,” which was hosted by Concordia University from June 2nd to June 6th and is co-directed by the seminar’s instructor and Concordia Film Studies professor Catherine Russell. An essential component of the course’s organization, the congress was to integrate and complement the subject matters addressed in class or encountered in assigned texts and films.
FMST 635 - TOPICS IN AESTHETIC AND CULTURAL THEORY: NATIONS AND THEORY
“Nations and Theory” focuses on film texts and cinematic practices that problematize traditional definitions of national cinemas as coherent systems or discourses. The purpose is to verify if --and how—contemporary films can be identified with the notion of national cinema, address national themes or issues, and be representative of national discourses, ideologies, social formations. The seminar also considers the dominant implications of national categories and consider the concept of national cinema from anti-state, sub-national, non-Western, and post-colonial positions which challenge the ideological premises of the modern nation.
The first part of the course assumes the concept of nation itself as our object of inquiry and analyzes films that exemplify or problematize the notion of national cinema. The second part of the course concentrates on recent film practices set at the interface of Hollywood and nation-based cinemas or local and global circuits of film production and distribution.
FMST 615 - Topics in European Cinema-Western European Cinemas since 1980
This seminar is an introduction to Western European film practices of the past twenty years, a period characterized by the crisis of Europe’s national film industries and the emergence of alternative modes of production and distribution, as well as aesthetic trends. The seminar is also designed to examine recent scholarly approaches to Western European cinemas.
FMST 635 – Topics in Aesthetic and Cultural Theory: Women and film Authorship: Issues and Contexts
The theorization of women's authorship reflects a more general problem in Western society: the definition of female identity in terms of “otherness” with respect to male-based notions of subjectivity. In auteur-oriented film criticism and theory the lack of focus on gender is a consequence of this conceptual overlook, as well as of the exclusion that women have traditionally experienced in various domains of cultural production and reception, including cinema. This double exclusion has reinforced the idea that female authorship is a marker of alterity, mainly found in marginal or oppositional types of film production and discourse.
Since the mid-seventies, feminist film theoreticians have become interested in authorship as a category that allows an effective critique of dominant film discourse and provides gender-specific models of textual enunciation and cultural distinction. This seminar concentrates primarily—although not exclusively--on this scholarship. Its main purpose is to discuss female authorship as a form of agency in different periods of cinema’s history and in various film systems. Another objective of this seminar is to consider how feminist approaches have contributed to the theoretical and historical reassessment of the concept of authorship, in academic as well as professional contexts related to film.
The case studies will cover mainstream, independent, avant-garde, and documentary cinemas. The final section of the course is devoted to the work of independent filmmakers based in Montréal. In the past, I invited Mary Ellen Davis, Guylaine Dionne, and Marielle Nitoslawska.
The film author has traditionally been identified with the filmmaker. Although we will for the most part assume this equivalence, we will also acknowledge the conceptual problems that this association gives rise to. Consequently, we will stress the variety of professional skills subsumed within the category of the film-author and examine the ideological and cultural factors that maintain them in subordinated positions with respect to the figure of the film director.
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
FMST 322 - History of Film Since 1959
This course offers a comprehensive examination of contemporary world cinema from a range of cultural and critical perspectives. The purpose is to analyze film styles and practices of different countries from the late 1950s until today, considered in their specific contexts, as well as in relation to the aesthetic and theoretical issues that they raise. The focus is on films and themes that help students understand how the notion of “new cinema” has become established as a critical category and what artistic forms and cultural movements it has been associated with during the past fifty years.
FMST 329 - Women and Film
Women and Film explores women’s roles within different periods and film forms, including classical, avant-garde, art house, non-Western, mainstream, independent and auteur-oriented cinemas. The course also provides an overview of feminist approaches to the presence and the representation of women in film and other audiovisual forms. Women and Film is divided into three parts. In the first, we will consider women’s contribution to the history of filmmaking as directors, producers, writers, and actresses. In the second, we will examine gender-related issues in films made by women filmmakers or which foreground female characters and issues. In the third, we will concentrate on feminist readings and women’s appropriations of film genres typical of mainstream or male-dominant contexts of filmic production and reception, including the Hollywood melodrama, the slasher film, and the pornographic film.
FMST 409 - Seminar in Women and Film: Women’s cinema since the 1990’s
This seminar examines women’s film practices and feminist approaches to cinema since the 1990’s, from within an international context. An important goal of this course is to analyze films by women filmmakers and/or relevant to women’s issues which have broadened the definition of women’s cinema. Finally, the course proposes an overview of women’s contributions to filmmaking and film theory from diasporic, non-Western, and post-colonial perspectives.
The first part of the seminar concentrates on women’s position in the cinema within the cultural framework of post feminism. The second part explores the notion of women’s cinema as “minor” cinema and the film practices and cultural positions to which this definition is relevant. Students’ presentations and a roundtable on post feminism and its impact on women film directors working in mainstream cinema, as well as independent or international art house film circuits, complement and conclude the first two sections of the seminar. The third examines films by women film directors whose work addresses issues of cultural identity from anti-state, sub-national, non-Western, and post-colonial perspectives.
FMST 335 - Aspects of National Cinema: New Directions in Contemporary European Cinema
This course proposes an overview of European cinema since the 1980s, with specific focus on:
- Changes in national and trans-national film systems and industries.
- Cultural identity in 1980s and 1990s European films.
- New film aesthetics in European cinema.
GRADUATE SEMINARS
FMST 615 - Topics in European Cinema Special Topic: Western European Cinemas since 1980
This course is an introduction to Western European film practices of the past twenty years, a period characterized by the crisis of Europe’s national film industries and the emergence of alternative modes of production and distribution, as well as aesthetic trends. The seminar is also designed to examine recent scholarly approaches to Western European cinemas.
FMST 625 - Methods in Film Studies: Women and Silent Cinema
Women and Silent Cinema examines women’s film practices in the early and silent phases of cinema, from within an international context. The seminar proposes an overview of women’s contributions to the first four decades of cinema, including their involvement in film practices and enterprises, their representation in various film forms and genres, their roles in various phases and areas of cinema’s establishment as a social and cultural activity, as well as their participation in the socio-cultural contexts that marked the emergence of cinema as a new medium and industry.
The course also offers a vast selection of the literature on early and silent cinemas concentrating on gender-specific and feminist issues, which samples some of the most innovative and interesting research lately produced in the discipline of film studies.
In 2004, students had the unique opportunity to become acquainted with the most recent developments in this scholarship at the international congress “Women and the Silent Screen,” which was hosted by Concordia University from June 2nd to June 6th and is co-directed by the seminar’s instructor and Concordia Film Studies professor Catherine Russell. An essential component of the course’s organization, the congress was to integrate and complement the subject matters addressed in class or encountered in assigned texts and films.
FMST 635 - TOPICS IN AESTHETIC AND CULTURAL THEORY: NATIONS AND THEORY
“Nations and Theory” focuses on film texts and cinematic practices that problematize traditional definitions of national cinemas as coherent systems or discourses. The purpose is to verify if --and how—contemporary films can be identified with the notion of national cinema, address national themes or issues, and be representative of national discourses, ideologies, social formations. The seminar also considers the dominant implications of national categories and consider the concept of national cinema from anti-state, sub-national, non-Western, and post-colonial positions which challenge the ideological premises of the modern nation.
The first part of the course assumes the concept of nation itself as our object of inquiry and analyzes films that exemplify or problematize the notion of national cinema. The second part of the course concentrates on recent film practices set at the interface of Hollywood and nation-based cinemas or local and global circuits of film production and distribution.
FMST 615 - Topics in European Cinema-Western European Cinemas since 1980
This seminar is an introduction to Western European film practices of the past twenty years, a period characterized by the crisis of Europe’s national film industries and the emergence of alternative modes of production and distribution, as well as aesthetic trends. The seminar is also designed to examine recent scholarly approaches to Western European cinemas.
FMST 635 – Topics in Aesthetic and Cultural Theory: Women and film Authorship: Issues and Contexts
The theorization of women's authorship reflects a more general problem in Western society: the definition of female identity in terms of “otherness” with respect to male-based notions of subjectivity. In auteur-oriented film criticism and theory the lack of focus on gender is a consequence of this conceptual overlook, as well as of the exclusion that women have traditionally experienced in various domains of cultural production and reception, including cinema. This double exclusion has reinforced the idea that female authorship is a marker of alterity, mainly found in marginal or oppositional types of film production and discourse.
Since the mid-seventies, feminist film theoreticians have become interested in authorship as a category that allows an effective critique of dominant film discourse and provides gender-specific models of textual enunciation and cultural distinction. This seminar concentrates primarily—although not exclusively--on this scholarship. Its main purpose is to discuss female authorship as a form of agency in different periods of cinema’s history and in various film systems. Another objective of this seminar is to consider how feminist approaches have contributed to the theoretical and historical reassessment of the concept of authorship, in academic as well as professional contexts related to film.
The case studies will cover mainstream, independent, avant-garde, and documentary cinemas. The final section of the course is devoted to the work of independent filmmakers based in Montréal. In the past, I invited Mary Ellen Davis, Guylaine Dionne, and Marielle Nitoslawska.
The film author has traditionally been identified with the filmmaker. Although we will for the most part assume this equivalence, we will also acknowledge the conceptual problems that this association gives rise to. Consequently, we will stress the variety of professional skills subsumed within the category of the film-author and examine the ideological and cultural factors that maintain them in subordinated positions with respect to the figure of the film director.