photo: Adrian Buitenhuis
Here in the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University I teach in Art and Culture Studies, Film Studies, the MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies, and starting in Fall 201, the MA in Comparative Media Arts. I also teach graduate students through Special Arrangements. My students are both scholars and artists (often the same person). I teach students how to think about art by drawing close to it and attending to their affective, perceptual, and finally conceptual responses. I teach artists to choose theoretical approaches that shed light on their practice. Teaching scholars to think in an art-friendly way, I privilege scholarly approaches that are less critical than descriptive, and pursue the delicate task of translating the experience of a work of art into the medium of writing.
Courses Spring 2013
FPA 310, Interdisciplinary Research Methods
News from some of my former grad students
Gabrielle Hezekiah is Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine (Trinidad). Her beautiful book, Phenomenology's Material Presence: Video, Vision and Experience, is out from Intellect Books.
Aleksandra Dulic teaches in the Department of Creative Studies at UBC Okanagan. You can read about the Cinema of Braided Processes and other projects here.
Tarja Pitkänen-Walter is Head of the Degree Program in Painting at Helsinki Academy of the Fine Arts. See her artwork here.
Emily Rosamond is in the Humanities Doctoral Program at Concordia University. See her sculptural artworks here.
See Jacky Sawatzky’s interactive, performative, and handmade works here.
Donna Szöke teaches in the Department of Visual Art at Brock University. See her video and new media works here
See Adrian Buitenhuis’s photography and films
Recent teaching at Simon Fraser University
Fall 2012
FPA 335, Introduction to Film Theory
FPA 811, Graduate Seminar in Contemporary Arts
Spring 2012
FPA 412, Advanced Seminar in Art and Culture: Enfolding-Unfolding Aesthetics
FPA 887, Selected Topics in Fine and Performing Arts: Enfolding-Unfolding Aesthetics
Course at the European Graduate School, Summer 2010: “Deleuze, Aesthetics, and a Brush with Islamic Thought”
Graduate supervision at Simon Fraser University
Senior supervisor, Jeffrey Langille, MFA. In progress.
Senior supervisor, Alize Zorlotuna, MFA. In progress.
Senior supervisor, Sydney Koke, MFA. In progress.
Senior supervisor, Edith Artner, MFA, “Surfbox Sitting on a Liquid Platform: A Note on Sensory Motility, or the ‘Architecture of Landing.’” Defended, September 2011.
Senior supervisor, Natalie Sorenson, MFA, “The Life’s Work of Murphy Piltdown.” Defended, April 2010.
Senior supervisor, Emily Rosamond, MFA, “Chewing Chewing Chewing Social Space.” Defended, October 2007.
Senior supervisor, Amanda Christie, MFA. “Sensuous Machines: Embodied Mechanics of Cinematic Performances.” Defended, May 2007.
Senior supervisor, Jacky Sawatzky, MFA. “The RGB Project.” Defended, December 2004.
Senior supervisor, Sabita Majid, MA in History. “Bollywood’s Diasporan Audience.” Defended, May 2008.
Supervisor, Tyler Fox, Ph.D., School for Interactive Arts and Technology. In progress.
Supervisor, Adam Ashraf-Abaidi, Ph.D., School for Interactive Arts and Technology. In progress.
Supervisor, Deborah Edmeades, MFA. In progress.
SUpervisor, Juan Manuel Sepulveda, MFA. In progress.
Supervisor, Charlene Vickers, MFA. In progress.
Supervisor, Hamidreza Jadid, MFA. In progress.
Supervisor, Helma Sawatzky, MA in Communication. Defended, September 2011.
Supervisor, Adrian Buitenhuis, MFA, “HWY 99.” Defended, November 2008.
Supervisor, Sharon Kahanoff, MFA., “The Here to Gathered.” Defended, September 2008.
Supervisor, Donna Szoke, MFA. “Optics Out of Shadows: The Presence of Absence.” Defended, March 2007.
Supervisor, Aleksandra Dulic, Ph.D., School for Interactive Art and Technology. “Fields of Interaction: From Shadow Play Theatre to Media Performance.” Defended, May 2006.
Post-doctoral supervisor, Dr. Hudson Moura, “The Intermedial Frontiers of Exile in Intercultural Cinema.” 2004-2006.
Other graduate supervision
Auckland University of Technology, School of Art and Design
Supervisor, Azadeh Emadi, Ph.D. “Pa Dar Hava (Feet in the Air)—an unfolding of a Middle Eastern space of exile via moving image art.” In progress.
Helsinki Academy of the Arts, Finland
Doctoral advisor, Tarja Pitkanen-Walter, Ph.D. Program in Fine Arts. “From Amodal Perception To Abstract Representation – Re-Interpretation Of Modernist Painting.” Defended, June 2006.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto
Doctoral committee member, Gabrielle Hezekiah, Ph.D. “Experimentation, Mediation, and Knowledge: The Videos of Robert Yao Ramesar.” Defended, February 20, 2006.
Carleton University
Supervisor, James Missen, “Fringe Experientiality: Canadian Experimental Film and Video as Affective Cultural Theory,” M.A. in Film Studies, Carleton University. Defended, April 2002.
Supervisor, Maria Ramadori, “Phenomenal Bodies: Relocating the Senses in Canadian Feminist Experimental Cinema,” M.A. in Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Defended May 2001.
Supervisor, Barbara Rockburn, “Bonne Entente: Elliptical Elisions and Canadian Narrative Structure,” M.A. in Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Defended September 1997.
Recent graduate examination
Tereza Stehlikova, "Tangible Territory: Inviting the Body into the Experience of Moving Image," Ph.D. in Animation, Royal College of Art, London, 2012
Ilona Hongisto, “Soul of the Documentary: Expression and the Capture of the Real,” Ph. D. dissertation, University of Turku, Finland, 2011
Kjetil Rodje, “Seeing Red: Blood Images in American Cinema, 1958-1969, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, 2011
Nour Dados, “Lost and Found in Beirut: Memory and Place in Narratives of the City,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Communication, University of Technology Sydney, 2010
Mahmoud Yektaparast, "An Aesthetics of Anger," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Sydney, 2009
Mary Watson-Seoighe, “The Cutting Edge: Deviant Realisms and Cinematic Interruption,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cape Town, 2007.
Jennifer Deger, “Shimmering Screens: Media, Mimesis, and a Vision of Yolngu Modernity,” Ph.D. dissertation, Macquarie University, Department of Anthropology, 2004.