About Film Studies-2009version
The Film Studies program offered by the School for Studies in Art and Culture is one of the largest and one of the most respected of its kind in Canada. Its distinctiveness is founded on a wide range of attributes. Its curriculum introduces students to a variety of approaches to the moving image, from feature films to television and new interactive technologies.
Over their 3 or 4 year BA programs, students acquire specialized knowledge concerning theory, historiography, various national cinemas (including Canadian, American, British, French, Latin American), the main currents within film making since its beginnings (styles, artistic movements, political agendas) and the works of some of the world’s most influential filmmakers.
Along with this specialized knowledge, Film Studies addresses broader questions having to do with the analysis of culture, society, and industry. As such, Film Studies sees itself in agreement with the interdisciplinary ideals promoted by the School for Studies in Art and Culture.
History of Film Studies at Carleton
Through the mid-seventies, because of initiatives taken within the Department of English, and with the support of the faculty and administration, a number of university committees heard arguments for a program in Film Studies at Carleton. The first Carleton students with a Pass degree in Film Studies were graduated in 1978 and in 1979 the program achieved departmental status. Coincident with that achievement, in 1979-80 Film Studies began its long involvement with the Institute (now School) of Canadian Studies by offering its course in Canadian Cinema to graduate students. In order to sustain the rapid growth of the program, three successive faculty appointments were made in 1976, 1977 and 1978.
Another important development in 1979 was the Department’s move to the St. Patrick’s Building where proper classroom viewing facilities and storage facilities for a very substantial film (and later video) collection were built to specifications. Healthy budgets and large student growth permitted the acquisition of state of the art equipment for the study and projection of films (and videotape). Carleton could now claim to have one of the best-equipped facilities and one of the largest educational collections for the study of film in Canada.
A further stage in the history of the program was reached in 1982 with the expansion of the undergraduate course offerings and the convocation of the university’s first B.A. Honours students in Film Studies. The approval of the M.A. Program in Film Studies at Carleton was supported by new faculty appointments in 1996, 1997 and 2002.
One recent development is worthy of note. In 1992 Film Studies relinquished its departmental status to join with Art History and Music as a program in the School for Studies in Art and Culture. This administrative arrangement offers an opportunity to participate with two neighbouring programs and like-minded faculty in future interdisciplinary developments in Arts and Social Science.
A graduate degree leading to a Master in Film Studies was created in 1998. This disciplinary program draws upon the experience and strengths of the faculty. It places emphasis on the conceptual issues current in the field, specifically to questions of critical and historical method relevant to the research and study of various national cinemas in relation to their global and transnational contexts, media technology and aesthetics, other forms like animation, documentary, experimental cinema and video, and film’s relationship to other cultural practices like literature and theatre.
With the establishment of a Ph.D. in Cultural Mediations in 2001 in the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, the study of film has been expanded at Carleton. This program is designed to support work in cultural theory of the twentieth century and the analysis of a variety of cultural practices across and between literature, art history, film studies and music, and it offers the possibility of specialization in either one of four fields: Literary Studies, Musical Culture, Technology and Culture, and Visual Culture. Every year graduates from the MA program in Film Studies program have been admitted to the Institute, and are completing PhD degrees.
The Carleton University Film Studies Program and its faculty have played an important role in the development of the discipline in Canada.
Members of faculty helped found the discipline’s professional society, the Film Studies Association of Canada, and have held various offices over the years. Three Past Presidents are members of the faculty, as are a former Editor and a former Chair of the Editorial Board of the Association’s journal, The Canadian Journal of Film Studies.
Film Studies at Carleton has played host to four annual conferences of the Film Studies Association of Canada, to a Society for Animation Studies Conference, the annual conference of the Society for Cinema Studies and numerous symposia.
Members of faculty serve or have served on the editorial boards of Animation Journal, Cahiers Jean Renoir, Cinema Journal, Film History and Positif.
Since the establishment of the graduate program, Carleton has hosted the Graduate Student Colloquium “New Directions in Film and Media Studies” organized yearly by the Film Studies Association of Canada.
The Carleton University Film Studies Program and its faculty have played an important role in the development of the discipline in Canada.
Members of faculty helped found the discipline’s professional society, the Film Studies Association of Canada, and have held various offices over the years. Three Past Presidents are members of the faculty, as are a former Editor and a former Chair of the Editorial Board of the Association’s journal, The Canadian Journal of Film Studies.
Film Studies at Carleton has played host to four annual conferences of the Film Studies Association of Canada, to a Society for Animation Studies Conference, the annual conference of the Society for Cinema Studies and numerous symposia.
Members of faculty serve or have served on the editorial boards of Animation Journal, Cahiers Jean Renoir, Cinema Journal, Film History and Positif.
Since the establishment of the graduate program, Carleton has hosted the Graduate Student Colloquium “New Directions in Film and Media Studies” organized yearly by the Film Studies Association of Canada.
Since 1982 Carleton has maintained a demanding and successful Honours degree in Film Studies which has seen many students go on to teach in the field at the post-secondary level while others have made important contributions to film culture in this country through critical writing about cinema and/or by making their own films.
The masters program has provided new possibilities for Carleton students at the graduate level, with a high proportion of graduates pursuing doctoral level studies in Canada, England and the United States, and obtaining Film Studies faculty position in Canadian Universities. Other graduates have pursued successful careers in archival work, cultural administration and policy, film festivals and other forms of exhibition, production and research. Many other film studies graduates as film archivists, film festival programmers and coordinators, cultural administrators, researchers, consultants and teachers.