Christopher Pavsek
Associate Professor
Christopher Pavsek has a Ph.D. from the Program in Literature at Duke University. His book, "The Utopia of Film: Cinema and Its Futures in… More
VISUAL CULTURE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES
Visual Culture and Performance Studies is the only BA at SFU that studies the fine and performing arts, with a focus on visual culture. In the first two years, Visual Culture and Performance Studies students gain a grounding in the history of visual art, cinema, studio art, and, if they wish, the performing arts. Upper-year courses include critical theory, historical and thematic topics in visual culture, a course in performance studies, interdisciplinary research methods, curating, and a popular internship course.
Visual Culture and Performance Studies prepares students for careers in the arts. Our alumni include arts writers, arts administrators, curators, film programmers, and practicing artists. The degree also prepares students for a number of graduate degrees. Our alumni have taken M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Visual Art, Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, Critical and Curatorial Studies, English, Liberal Studies, Theory, Culture, and Politics, Library Science, and other degrees.
Other Information
To discuss courses or a major or minor, contact
Professor Denise Oleksijczuk, Art and Culture Studies area coordinator
oleksijczuk@sfu.ca 778-782-3238
Simon Fraser University, Room 2875, 149 West Hastings, Vancouver
Office hours : Summer 2012 by appointment
Spring 2013 Catalogue
DOSSIER ON FILM THEORY
We publish here some of the best student papers in film theory from Fall 2012. These thinkers have explored psychoanalytic film theory, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, phenomenology, feminist film theory, coming up with striking analyses of Véra Chytilova's Daisies (1966), Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (2010), Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956), and other films. Congratulations to the writers!
--Laura Marks
Anna Howlett, Negating the Synthesis: Approaching Feminist Film Theory Through Hegelian Dialectics
Jae Woo Kang, Immersing Into the Eye of the Camera
Michael Town, The Lacanian Real in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours
Sepehr Samimi, A Thousand Eyes For Perception, A Deleuzian Analysis of 127 hours
Thanh Nguyen, Masculinity in Melodrama: A Psychoanalytic "Gaze" at Written on the Wind
Summer 2012 Catalogue
Dossier on Enfolding-Unfolding Aesthetics with an Introduction by Laura U. Marks
Papers:
Erin Brown, Leibniz, Deleuze, and the 'Red Book" Mandalas of C.G. Jung
Tyler Fox, Metastable Care: Considering Semi-Living Monads in BioArt
Jerina Hajno, Creased Surface, Open City: Baroque Aesthetics and Withholding Resolution in Sarah Morris' City Films
Ozgun Eylul Iscen, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: The Enfolding-Unfolding Aesthetics of a Film
Katie Koncan, The One in the Many and the Many in the One: An Analysis of Monads, Folds, and the New Harmony in Jonathan Luckhurst's 'Monuments' Exhibition
Stacey Leung, Language as Information and Screen (on Emmett Williams' 13 Variations)
Ashley McLellan, Spirituality Persists: Unfolding an Immanent Spirituality in Annika Rixen’s Sciences of Observation
Jacqueline Ross, Reversible Terrain: Point of View in Kan Xuan's Nothing!
Sarah Stilwell, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker: Matter, soul and folded surfaces
Yi Xin Tong, Life of Im/mobility (on Baum by Christoph Runné)
Laura Weber, The image of information in Malcolm Levy’s video art: the digital plane of immanence and the unfolding of an Other world
Natasha Zimich, Feminine Manners of Unfolding in Horror Cinema: Unpacking Karen Lam’s Short Film Doll Parts
Copyright held by authors. All rights reserved.
Diagrams by Katie Koncan and Erin Brown.
Papers from Art & Culture Studies Summer 2012
Spring 2012 Catalogue
Some of the best projects from Art and Culture classes in Fall 2011.
Erin Brown, We Are Everywhere: Queer Space and the Art of Living in Glass Houses
Ryan Faliszewski, Towards an Architecture of Trans-Dimensionality: New Ontologies of Embodiment in Gordon Matta-Clark’s Anarchitectural Practice
Brenna Holler, The Virtualities of Randomness
Stacey Leung, On Nikki S. Lee
Katrina Orlowski, The significance of Chris Marker’s documentary film practice: Exploring Peirce’s semiotics in Description of a Struggle and Sunless
Ozgun Eylul Isacen, In Between: A Video Project (video is at http://vimeo.com/35014133)
Emily MacLean, Unfamiliar bodies: feeling queer, phantom limbs, and Mental States
Jacquelyn Ross, Unfolding in Space and Time: On Tauba Auerbach's Fold Paintings
The imaginary exhibition "(half) second: look, think, again" curated by Erin Brown, Stacey Leung, Emily MacLean, Ashley McLellan, and Doralynn Mui
All rights reserved. Copyright held by the authors and Simon Fraser University.
Faculty Profile
Visual Culture and Performance Studies Academic Calendar >>
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VISUAL CULTURE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES Faculty Members
Alumni Reflections
'The best thing about the Art and Cultures Studies program at SFU is that it is taught by a group of professors who have honed their curiosity, and who know how to inspire and support the inquisitiveness of their students. During my time in the program, I was not only allowed creative leeway to chase after my own particular interests, but I also found plenty of kindly placed challenges to lead me to new ideas. The commitment the professors have to breaking ground with their own work made them exciting teachers.'
Barbara Adler (B.A. in Art and Culture 2006), spoken-word poet, The Fugitives