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Christopher Gittings, Ph.D. (Edinburgh)
Chair of Film Studies
Office: UC 78
Phone: 519-661-2111 ext. 85781
Email: gittings@uwo.ca
Teaching in 2012/2013
Film 2258G: Canadian Cinema
Film 9373A: Theories of National Cinema
Areas of Interest:
Film Studies/Cultural Studies/Literary Studies: Canadian Cinemas, First Nations Cinemas, film theory, genre theory, critical theory, critical race studies, gender and sexuality, national cinema, postcolonial theory, documentary, melodrama, class, ideology.
Supervision:
I am available to supervise graduate student dissertations in the following areas:
• Canadian cinemas
• First Nations cinemas
• national cinema debates
• postcolonial theory
• postmodernism
• class
• ideology
• cultural memory
• film theory
• genre
• documentary
• melodrama
• race and representation
• gender and sexuality
Graduate Dissertation Supervisions to date:
MA
• Sean Fitzpatrick, The Im/Possibility of a Canadian Genre Cinema. Completed and defended at the University of Western Ontario, August 2012.
• Ganga Rudraiah, Cinema of the Social: Stars, Fans and the Standardization of Genre in Tamil Cinema. Completed and defended at the University of Western Ontario, August 2011.
• Tia Wong, Re-framing Trauma: Photographs and Memory in Alanis Obomsawin’s Documentaries. Completed and defended at the University of Western Ontario, August 2010.
Ph D
• Prabhjot Parmar, Divided Land, Divided Bodies: Representations of Nationalism and Violence in Literature and Films on the Partition of India. Completed and defended at the University of Western Ontario, May 2007
• Robyn Fowler, Miss Canada: Political Cartoons and the Construction of Nation. Completed and defended at University of Alberta, October 2005
• Heather Tapley, The American Hobo-Sexual: A Connective History in Material Queer Culture. Completed and defended at the University of Alberta, August 2003.
• Lucas Johnson, A Different Kind of Truth’: Fictionality in the Novels of John Irving. Completed and defended at University of Birmingham, UK May 2001.
• Faye Hammill, Cultural Politics and Canadian Writing: Destabilising Essentialist Identities in Atwood, Marlatt, Shields, and their Foremothers. Completed and defended at University of Birmigham, UK February 1999.
Selected Publications:
• "Activism and Aesthetics: The Work of John Greyson." In Great Canadian Film Directors ed, George Melnyk. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2007: 124-147.
• Canadian National Cinema: Ideology, Difference and Representation (2002);
• ed., Imperialism and Gender: Constructions of Masculinity (1996);
• articles on cultural translation, gender, sexuality, genre, postcolonialisms, postmodernisms, popular culture, national cinemas, ethnographic cinemas and race and nation in Essays On Canadian Writing, Studies in Short Fiction, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, The Glasgow Review, Kunapipi, Canadian Journal of Communication, Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Cinema Journal, British Journal of Canadian Studies and Australian Canadian Studies.
Recent Talks
• Re-visiting the Anglo-Canadian National Cinema Project. Presented at Film Studies Association of Canada Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario. May 30 - June 1, 2012
• HBO Canada: Making Quality TV and Cancon Masculinities in Call Me Fitz and Less Than Kind. Presented at Console-ing Passions: International Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media and Feminism, Suffolk University, Boston, MA USA. July 19 - 21, 2012
Honors and Distinctions:
• Director of the Center for Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham, England (1996-97);
• Editorial Board, Cultural Spaces (UTP).
Work in Progress:
• Parsing the Transnational in the Recent Work of John Greyson
• Contemporary Canadian Television