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During the first year of study, students will take Theories of National Cinema (0.5) in the fall term and Research Methods in Film Studies (0.5) and Film Theories, Criticisms and Histories (0.5) in the winter term. These three courses make up 1.5 of your course requirements.
Theories of National Cinema will provide students with a rigorous interrogation of national cinema. Informed by theories of nation and globalization developed by Benedict Anderson, Arjun Appadurai, Etienne Balibar, Homi Bhabha, Rey Chow, David Harvey, Roland Robertson and Fatimah Tobing Rony, the course begins by troubling notions of nation as an organic, homogeneous, unitary entity before shifting into a study of ideology and cinematic representations of nation, distribution and the political economies that facilitate the production of national cinemas. Readings of the ‘national’ will be underpinned by understandings of class, gender, race and sexuality. Films from various imperial, colonial, national and diasporic cinemas will be examined in the context of debates about what constitutes a national cinema. Research Methods in Film Studies (0.5) will introduce students to a variety of historical and contemporary approaches critical to doing advanced research in Film Studies. Film Theories, Criticisms and Histories introduces a number of key concepts and cultural theories in order to foster a variety of critical perspectives.Students in the MA program must complete the equivalent of three full courses, normally taking the required Theories of National Cinema and Film Theories and one course elective. In the Winter term of their first year students would normally take Research Methods in Film Studies and Film Theories, Criticisms and Histories. In the Fall term of year two, students would normally take two elective half courses and in the Winter term of this year they would complete their thesis (80-100 pages in length). The thesis must be completed in various stages. Early in March first-year M.A.students orally present their “work in progress” toward the thesis at a meeting of the Graduate Faculty. By mid-March first-year M.A. students in consultation with an advisor, will have proposed and submitted a thesis proposal (5 pages + Bibliography) to the Graduate Committee. At that stage the Graduate Committee provides comments and makes suggestions, and, if the proposal is approved, formally appoints a supervisor.
Over the first summer, the student is expected to continue researching and writing and attend the mandatory Summer Research Colloquium.
Students will submit a draft of the first chapter (20-25 pages) to their thesis supervisor by September 1st of their second year. After reading the chapter, the thesis supervisor must make a written report on the student’s progress to the Graduate Chair. It is the joint responsibility of the individual students and supervisors to arrange mutually satisfactory deadlines for the submission of the remaining portions of the thesis. Thesis supervisors generally provide students with written assessments of the material submitted. A second reader from inside the department may read all of the drafts as they are submitted, or s/he, in consultation with the supervisor and student may opt to read only one chapter before the thesis goes to defense in order to prove that it is ready. When the thesis is completed it is examined by program examiners and one university examiner from outside the student’s graduate program, following the regulations of the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
Students must maintain a B average in course work to proceed to the thesis.
Intellectual Development and Educational Experience
A) Being Made Aware of Expectations/Availability of Information
There are a number of features of our proposed M.A. which are specifically designed to help chart the student’s progress through the program. All incoming students are sent a copy of the Rules and Regulations when they are first accepted into the program.
At that time (usually early in March), students are also informed about the total amount of their financial support (i.e. the amount of the Special University Scholarship and any tuition fee waivers or reductions as well as the likely nature of their teaching assistantship or research assignment). Over the course of the summer, before entering the program, students are given a specific teaching assistantship assignment, sent a course syllabus and asked to contact the individual faculty member responsible for teaching the course. Contract letters outlining the specific duties of teaching assistants are signed by the Department Chair and student late in August.
At the beginning of September, several orientation meetings are held. The first is organized by the Graduate Chair and introduces all incoming MA candidates to faculty members and to continuing graduate students in the program. A representative of UWO’s Society of Graduate Students normally attends this meeting to review the organizations and resources available to all graduate students on campus, and to answer questions from incoming students.
There is also an orientation meeting for new Teaching Assistants. At this meeting the Graduate Chair explains the unionized contract and outlines general expectations and procedures for evaluation and appeal. Students are also given more specific advice relating to the particular course assignments. New TAs are encouraged to attend a one-day workshop sponsored by the Graduate Teaching Union (PSAC) and the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
B) Professional Development
Eventually, a maximum of 8 MA students will be offered TA positions to support the first-year undergraduate course Film Studies 1020E—An Introduction to Film Studies. The coordinator of Film Studies 1020E will work with the Graduate Coordinator to design and run a seminar on teaching skills for Film Studies. Other TAships will be available on other 2100-level courses, on an as-needed basis.
Plans are in place for a Professional Development Workshop that would tutor MA candidates on applying for a Ph D, and non-academic options for their degree.
Students will also have the opportunity to attend the Visual Culture Research Group which Film Studies introduced in 2006-07 with the cooperation of other units on campus. Second-year students will have the opportunity to present work from their research projects at this forum.
Course Work
Non-Course MilestonesThesis
Students must a write research thesis (80-100 pages in length) which must be approved by their examining committee and accepted by the U.W.O. School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. The thesis is completed in various stages.
Residency Requirements:
There is no residency requirement at Western. However, the degree will normally take two calendar years or 6 terms to complete and funding will be in place for six terms.
Part time studies
The program will not be offered on a part-time basis.
Students must complete 3.0 graduate-level course credits within the M.A. in Film Studies program.
These include:
•Film XXXX – Theories of National Cinema (weight 0.5)
•Film XXXX – Film Theories, Criticisms and Histories (weight 0.5)
•Film XXXX – Research Methods in Film Studies (weight 0.5)
•1.5 course credit electives
Elective Courses Under Discussion (0.5): Queering National Cinemas; Advanced Studies in American Cinema, Advanced Topics in the Representation of Gender and Sexuality, Study of Bollywood Cinema and the Idea of India; German Expressionist Cinema; Polish Cinema; New Cinemas in the European Union; Japanese Cinema and Film Studies; New Hollywood Cinema
With the permission of the Graduate Committee, it may be possible to substitute a directed reading course for one of the four electives. This is dependent on Faculty workload and availability.
Total Graduate Courses Listed and Level
Besides the required Theories of National Cinema, Film Theories, Criticisms and Histories and Research Methods in Film Studies, one additional half year course is offered as an elective in the Fall term of the first year. Two more half-year electives are offered in the Fall term of the second year.Elective Courses:
The availability of courses means that all M.A. students can complete all of their course requirements within two regular academic years in the fall and winter terms.
Film Studies graduate courses will be presented as a combination of lecture and seminars. Students will be required to conduct seminars on readings of visual materials selected by the professor, and sometimes supplemented by their own chosen texts. Assessment will be based on oral participation, marking of short written assignments, and marking of a longer term paper (generally about 20 pages).
Film XXXX Theories of National Cinema (0.5)
Provides students with a rigorous interrogation of national cinema. Informed by theories of nation and globalization developed by such figures as Benedict Anderson, Arjun Appadurai, Etienne Balibar, Homi Bhabha, Rey Chow, David Harvey, Andrew Higson, Roland Robertson and Fatimah Tobing Rony, the course begins by troubling notions of nation as an organic, homogeneous, unitary entity before shifting into a study of ideology and cinematic representations of nation, distribution and the political economies that structure the production of national cinemas. Readings of the ‘national’ will be underpinned by understandings of class, gender, race and sexuality. Films from various imperial, colonial, national and diasporic cinemas will be examined in the context of debates about what constitutes a national cinema.
Type of Course: required course
Prerequisites: none
Film XXXX Film Theories, Criticisms, and Histories (0.5)
Moving chronologically from the early twentieth century to the present, this course will examine key approaches to the study of film. The course will concentrate on classical and contemporary film theories and criticisms, then explore the development of film historical and interdisciplinary scholarship in film studies today.
Type of course: required course
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX Research Methods in Film Studies (0.5)
This course will highlight some of the major research methods in film studies. Students will develop a necessary range of skills for conducting advanced research in film studies. Course material will be shaped in part by student research interests, with the goal of developing a thesis topic.
Type of course: required course
Prerequisite: Film Theories, Criticisms, Histories
Film XXXX Advanced Topics in the Representation of Gender and Sexuality (0.5)
This course will focus in depth on a particular topic of the representation of gender and sexuality. Diverse film and media texts, as well as critical and theoretical approaches from a range of historical periods, may be analyzed to address the topic’s field of debate.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX Advanced Topics in American Cinema (0.5)
This research-intensive course will provide detailed analysis of one (or more) key periods, movements, genres, or developments (technological/industrial/aesthetic) in the history of American cinema. We will thoroughly cover the scholarly work on the proposed topic, and our ultimate goal will be to find new ways of theorizing (or historicizing) the topic at hand. Films, readings, theoretical frameworks, and research methods will vary according to the proposed topic. Potential topics include: early cinema, silent cinema, censorship, the studio system, sound, film noir, melodrama, horror, cult/exploitation film, feminist film, and African-American cinema.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX Bollywood Cinema: Theory / Culture / History (0.5)
An advanced introduction to the theoretical, cultural and historical aspects of popular Hindi cinema from 1945 to the present, integrating extensive consideration of Indian aesthetic theory (rasa and darshan) with the examination of cultural processes and historical narratives (Islamicate culture, the project of modern nationhood, globalization). Attention will be given to the social and cultural work Bollywood cinema has performed for its domestic audience and its complex relationships with its diasporic and global audiences.
Type of Course: elective
Prequisite: none
Expressionism and Weimar Cinema (0.5)
This course explores the notion of expressionism in the context of Weimar cinema and film historiography. We will trace the influence of the “expressionist style” from drama and painting on German film and explore the tension between “art” and commercial film-making in 1920s film culture. Key issues include: trauma and hysteria, colonialism and primitivism, the new culture of light, export strategies and the creation of a “national” cinema. In this course, we will also consider the debates on “expressionism” in European film theory (Kracauer, Eisner, Epstein, Deleuze, and Elsaesser).
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX New Hollywood Cinema (0.5)
This course will explore key transformations in American cinema of the 1960s and 1970s following the perceived “collapse” of the classical Hollywood studio system. We will situate New Hollywood cinema in relation to the radical political and social upheavals of the era and examine the many aesthetic, narrative, and technological innovations of the films typically associated with this movement. In addition, close attention to key industrial changes and the emergence of blockbuster cinema will help enhance (and complicate) our conceptualization of postclassical American cinema. While emphasizing cultural studies and economic/industry-based analysis, the course will also attend to key theoretical trends in film studies (feminist film theory, spectatorship theory, etc.) from the period.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX The Historical Turn (0.5)
This course studies new approaches to film history that emerged in the past three decades. We will investigate collaborations between film scholars and archives, revisionist histories of film aesthetics and style, early cinema and modernity, historical research on the film industry, and gender and sexuality in early cinema.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX Japanese Cinema (0.5)
This course examines the theoretical and historical relations between film studies and Japanese national cinema. The issues we will investigate include pre-cinematic optical devices, the concept of classical Hollywood cinema and its alternatives, political modernism, and postmodern visual culture.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX New Cinemas in the European Union (0.5)
“New Cinemas in the European Union” focuses on the ways European cinemas express political, social and cultural conditions in the unified Europe. The revision of national identities, the creation of transnational spaces and globalization, on the one hand, and the internal fragmentation, regionalism, “Fortress Europe”, xenophobia and racism, on the other, are some issues discussed in recently produced films coming from European countries.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none
Film XXXX Polish National Cinema (0.5)
Since Polish cinema first impinged on international awareness with the late-‘fifties emergence of ‘the Polish School’, this course will begin by considering what specific traits of that movement caused Jean-Luc Godard to call it one of the major ones in world cinematic history. Analysis of the nature of ‘recognition’ (Hegel, Charles Taylor) will weigh the degree of importance of a single flagship director as a point of crystallization, dialoguing inter alia with Mette Hjort’s work on the role of Lars von Trier in the Dogme95 movement. Are there discernable prerequisites for the achievement of ‘global’ presence by a ‘small’ nation (define ‘small’…)? Thus the course will consider how these prerequisites might differ between the late ‘fifties and the late twentieth century/early twenty-first century, using Polish cinema as a case study. Doing so will also involve a consideration of the dynamics of the other major Polish film movement, the ‘Cinema of Moral Concern’ (kino moralnego niepokoju) of the late ‘seventies, and a review of the significance of the co-production practices of Krzysztof Kieslowski, and of Polish cinematic developments in general following the systemic shifts inaugurated in 1989.
Type of course: elective
Prerequisite: none