Film Studies
St. Patrick's Building 423
Telephone: 613-520-2342
Fax: 613-520-3575
carleton.ca/artandculture/filmstudies
The School
Director: Bryan Gillingham
Supervisor of Graduate Studies: Zuzana Pick
The School for Studies in Art and Culture offers a program
of study and research leading to the degree of Master of Arts
in Film Studies. This is a disciplinary M.A. with emphasis upon
1) the conceptual issues current in the field, and 2) the
problematics of various national cinemas and other
practices.
The program will develop in students a broadly based
expertise in the discipline. The study of Canadian cinema is
given a high priority, but provision is also made for the study
of other national cinemas, and for the study of other
traditions outside the mainstream, such as women's cinemas,
post-colonial cinemas, and minority and regional practices.
Most work in the program is on the feature fiction film and
its institutional foundations as an object of study. However,
in line with the expertise of members of faculty, the study of
other film forms like documentary, animation, experimental film
and video is a necessary part of the course offerings.
Questions of critical and historical method and problems of
theory inform all of the courses in the program. This
conceptual emphasis is in line with the central developments in
Film Studies as a discipline over the past twenty-five
years.
Qualifying-Year Program
Applicants who lack an Honours degree, but who have a
three-year degree in film studies or a related discipline with
a minimum standing of B+, may be admitted to a qualifying-year
program. Students who complete the qualifying-year requirements
with high honours standing or better will be considered for
admission to the master's program. The regulations governing
the qualifying-year are outlined in the General Regulations
section of this calendar.
Master of Arts
Admission Requirements
The minimum requirement for admission to the Master's
program in either a full-time or part-time capacity is a B.A.
(Honours) or the equivalent in film studies or a related
discipline with high honours standing. Related disciplines
might include mass communication, art history, literature,
Canadian studies, women's studies, and history. Applicants
without a background in film studies may be required to take a
maximum of two full credits from designated courses in the
undergraduate Film Studies program in addition to their normal
M.A. program requirements.
Program Requirements
The specific program requirements for students in the M.A.
program are as follows:
- 1.0 core credit required
- 2.0 additional credits
- Thesis (equivalent to 2.0 credits)
- Total of 5.0 credits required
In choosing the two additional credits beyond the core
seminar and the thesis, students may take 0.5 credit outside
the Film Studies program subject to the approval of the
Graduate Supervisor.
Because of the strong conceptual demands of the program and
the expectation that students be able to synthesize ideas in a
substantial piece of written work, the research essay option
will not be available in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree.
Deadlines
Normally, full-time students should complete their course
work by the end of the second term, and part-time students by
the end of the fifth term.
Thesis Proposal
Students normally will submit a detailed thesis proposal to
the thesis proposal committee no later than March 1 of the
first year of registration for students enrolled full-time and
no later than the middle of the fifth term of registration for
students enrolled part-time.
Language Requirements
A reading knowledge of french (or another language approved
by the Film Studies Graduate Supervisor) is required.
Academic Standing
A standing of B- or better must be obtained in each course
counted towards the master's degree.
Graduate Courses
Not all of the following courses are offered in a given
year. For an up-to-date statement of course offerings and to
determine the term of offering, consult the class schedule
atcentral.carleton.ca
- FILM 5000 [1.0 credit]
- Directions in Film Theory and Film History
- Recent developments in film theory and history. Topics
may include spectatorship, identity, gender, cultural
studies, fan cultures, performance, reception theory,
formation of taste, discourse analysis, historical method,
and concepts of national and transnational cinemas.
- FILM 5001 [0.5 credit]
- Directed Readings and Research
- Tutorials designed to permit students to pursue
research on topics in film studies which have been chosen
in consultation with members of faculty.
- FILM 5002 [0.5 credit]
- Special Topics
- Selected topics in film studies not available in the
regular course program.
- FILM 5105 [0.5 credit]
- Changing Practices
- Traditional and recent developments in non-feature film
forms such as documentary, newsreel, experimental film,
video and television. The aesthetic particulars that
distinguish these forms from the fiction feature film and
their social and cultural roles.
- FILM 5201 [0.5 credit]
- Topics in European Cinema
- Some aspect of European cinema - a particular period,
movement, style, genre, narrative development or
co-production practice - is the focus of this course. The
problematic concept of a national cinema in the light of
current debates about nation-ness.
- FILM 5202 [0.5 credit]
- Cinemas of the America
- Examination of one or more of the cinemas of the United
States, the Caribbean, Latin America and Brazil. A
particular period, movement, style, genre, narrative
development, some relationship between these cinemas or the
problematic concept of a national cinema may be dealt
with.
- FILM 5204 [0.5 credit]
- Cultural Mediations
- The processes of mediation that operate between
mainstream and alternative, independent or marginal film
industries and practices.
- FILM 5208 [0.5 credit]
- Historical Traditions in Canadian Cinema
- Selected aspects of the history of cinema in Canada;
with emphasis on the role of institutional bodies,
government policies, economic decisions, aesthetic
traditions, and related cultural practices.
- FILM 5209 [0.5 credit]
- Critical Perspectives on Canadian Cinema
- Current critical approaches to Canadian film; the
influence of Canadian and foreign cultural theory and
criticism on film studies in Canada.
- FILM 5401 [0.5 credit]
- Studies in Authorship
- Examination of the work of one or two filmmakers, with
a concern for recent ideas about the concept of authorship
and the formation of artistic and critical
reputations.
- FILM 5500 [0.5 credit]
- Advanced Film Analysis
- Issues and approaches to the detailed analysis of
particular film texts. Work in narratology, hermeneutics,
discourse analysis, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and
semiotics will provide the methodological background to the
study of individual films.
- FILM 5501 [0.5 credit]
- Gender and Cinema
- The social production and reproduction of gender and
gender relations through the cinema and its
representations; the consequences of this work for
feminist, gay and lesbian film practices and politics.
- FILM 5601 [0.5 credit]
- Studies in Genre
- The theory and practice of film genres will be the
object of study in this course.
- FILM 5701 [0.5 credit]
- Topics in Animation
- Institutional histories, the work of individual
animators, modes of production, and the social function of
animation represent topics to be covered by this
course.
- FILM 5900 [0.5 credit]
- Cinema and Modernism
- Cinema's relationship to the history and theory of
modernism. The concerns of classical film theory, the
emergence of avant-garde, modernist film practices, and
film's relationship to other twentieth-century art
forms.
- FILM 5901 [0.5 credit]
- Cinema and the Postmodern
- An examination of cinema's relationship to the history
and theory of postmodern cultural practices in performance
art, video, multimedia, architecture, literature, music,
and other examples of artistic postmodernism.
- FILM 5909
- M.A. Thesis
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