Professor Catherine Fowler, Our People, Media, Film and Communication, University of Otago, New Zealand

Catherine Fowler 2022 image BA(Hons)(Bulmershe) PhD(Warw)
Professor

Contact

Office: 3N11, 3rd floor, Arts (Burns) Building
Tel +64 3 479 8615
Email catherine.fowler@otago.ac.nz

Research interest

Following her PhD on the films of Chantal Akerman, she lectured from 1994-2004 in Film Studies at Southampton Institute of Higher Education, UK. As well as leading the BA (Hons) in Film Studies and being made a Reader in Research (in 2001) she helped develop and then led the MA in Independent Film and Filmmaking.

Her research interests in Film are divided between historical studies and an engagement with Contemporary World Cinema. Her PhD on Chantal Akerman was an attempt to broaden the critical boundaries within which the director's films had been previously discussed, considering not only her status as a 'woman' and 'independent' filmmaker but also her identities as 'Belgian' and 'Jewish'. Aspects of this thesis have been published in various edited collections, and from it have grown projects around the contradictions of national cinema, independent practice and women filmmakers (see Bibliography for details).

Her recent research and publications have encompassed each of these areas. With Gillian Helfield she is co-editor of the collection: 'Representing the Rural: Space, Place and Identity in Films about the Land'. This book offers a critical introduction to issues raised by the many, varied films that take the land as their setting. The essays here consider the ways in which once the urban space is displaced by the rural, so our understanding of cinema's use of modernity, the national, post-colonialism and the post-modern is transformed.

Her most recent book on British woman film-maker Sally Potter, published 2008, offers the first book length survey of a director who uses song, dance, performance and poetry to expand our experience of cinema beyond the audiovisual.

She was Screen correspondent for the 'Créteil Festival de films de femmes' from 1992 - 1998, (writing an annual review) and she has been part of the editorial advisory committee for the magazine Vertigo ( Vertigomagazine.co.uk ).

Current projects arise from her interest in the film-art axis of influence. This is a long term project on films made for and exhibited in the space of the gallery that explores how these films might challenge theorizations of narrative, time and spectatorship in both film studies and art theory.

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Publications

De Rosa, M., & Fowler, C. (2021). Making conjunctions: Thinking topologically with contemporary artists’ moving images. Screen, 62(4), 512-532. doi: 10.1093/screen/hjab048

Fowler, C., & Redmond, S. (2021). Introduction. Media Practice & Education, 22(1), 1-4. doi: 10.1080/25741136.2021.1832764

Fowler, C. (2021). Expanding the field of practice-based-research: The videographic (feminist) diptych. Media Practice & Education, 22(1), 49-60. doi: 10.1080/25741136.2021.1832770

Stringer, R., Fowler, C., and Overell, R. (2019, March). Terror nullius: Screening and discussion panel. Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand. [Public Discussion].

Fowler, C. (2019). Alternative Film/Video Festival (13–17 December 2017) and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (3–8 May 2018): Film festivals as memory-work. Moving Image Review & Art Journal, 8(1-2), 176-183. doi: 10.1386/miraj_00017_4

Fowler, C. (2008). Sally Potter. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 168p.

Authored Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (Eds.). (2006). Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 384p.

Edited Book - Research

Fowler, C. (Ed.). (2002). The European cinema reader. London, UK: Routledge, 255p.

Edited Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2017). Slow looking: Confronting moving images with Georges Didi-Huberman. In M. Beugnet, A. Cameron & A. Fetveit (Eds.), Indefinite visions: Cinema and the attractions of uncertainty. (pp. 241-254). Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2017). The artists' long take as passage in Sharon Lockhart's installation Lunch Break (2008). In J. Gibbs & D. Pye (Eds.), The long take: Critical approaches. (pp. 193-205). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-58573-8

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2017). Unspooling cinema, or, thinking outside the (black) box with Atom Egoyan. In T. Long, E. Matheson & C. Ramsay (Eds.), Atom Egoyan: Steenbeckett. (pp. 49-61). London, UK: Black Dog.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2006). Symphonie paysanne: An embodied and embedded picturing of the land. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 135-149). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2006). Spending time with (a) celebrity: Sam Taylor-Wood's video portrait of David Beckham. In S. Holmes & S. Redmond (Eds.), Framing celebrity: New directions in celebrity culture. (pp. 241-252). London: Routledge.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (2006). Introduction. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 1-16). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (2006). Part 1. Land: Introduction. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 17-18). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (2006). Part 2. Peasants: Introduction. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 101-103). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (2006). Part 3. Landscape: Introduction. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 183-184). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Helfield, G. (2006). Part 4. Rural and Nation: Introduction. In C. Fowler & G. Helfield (Eds.), Representing the rural: Space, place, and identity in films about the land. (pp. 259-260). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2003). All Night Long: The ambivalent text of ″Belgianicity″. In G. A. Foster (Ed.), Identity and memory: The films of Chantal Akerman. (pp. 77-93). Carbondale, IL, USA: Southern Illinois University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2003). Cinefeminism in its Middle Ages, or ″Please, please, please give me back my pleasure″: The 1990s work of Sally Potter, Chantal Akerman, and Yvonne Rainer. In J. Levitin, J. Pessis & V. Raoul (Eds.), Women filmmakers: Refocusing. (pp. 51-61). Vancouver, BC, Canada: UBC Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C. (2000). Harnessing visibility: The attractions of Chantal Akerman′s Golden Eighties. In B. Marshall & R. Stilwell (Eds.), Musicals: Hollywood and beyond. (pp. 107-116). Exeter, UK: Intellect.

Chapter in Book - Research

Fowler, C., & Kambuta, R. (2013). Extreme human makeovers: Supernanny, the unruly child, and adulthood in crisis. In K. J. Renner (Ed.), The 'evil child' in literature, film and popular culture. (pp. 173-187). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Chapter in Book - Other

Fowler, C. (2009). Ciemność, światło i gliniarz: Z Robertem Sarkiesm rozmawia Catherine Fowler [The dark, the light and the cop: An interview with Robert Sarkies] [Reprinted from Illusions 39, 14-17]. In I. Conrich (Ed.), Kino Nowej Zelandii [Cinema of New Zealand]. (pp. 403-413). Kraców, Poland: Korporacja ha!art.

Chapter in Book - Other

Fowler, C. (2004). Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du commerce 1080 Bruxelles. In E. Mathijs (Ed.), The cinema of low countries. (pp. 131-139). London, UK: Wallflower.

Chapter in Book - Other

De Rosa, M., & Fowler, C. (2021). Making conjunctions: Thinking topologically with contemporary artists’ moving images. Screen, 62(4), 512-532. doi: 10.1093/screen/hjab048

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2021). Expanding the field of practice-based-research: The videographic (feminist) diptych. Media Practice & Education, 22(1), 49-60. doi: 10.1080/25741136.2021.1832770

Journal - Research Article

Miller Skillander, K., & Fowler, C. (2015). From longitudinal studies to longitudinal documentaries: Revisiting infra-ordinary lives. Studies in Documentary Film, 9(2), 127-142. doi: 10.1080/17503280.2015.1031569

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2013). The Clock: Gesture and cinematic replaying. Framework, 54(2), 226-242. doi: 10.1353/frm.2013.0020

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2013). Obscurity and stillness: Potentiality in the moving image. Art Journal, 72(1), 64-79.

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2013). Once more with feeling: Performing the self in the work of Gillian Wearing, Kutluğ Ataman and Phil Collins. Moving Image Review & Art Journal, 2(1), 10-24. doi: 10.1386/miraj.2.1.10_1

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2012). Remembering cinema "elsewhere": From retrospection to introspection in the gallery film. Cinema Journal, 51(2), 26-45. doi: 10.1353/cj.2012.0008

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C., & Kambuta, R. (2011). Extreme human makeovers: Supernanny, the unruly child, and adulthood in crisis. Lit, 22(3), 262-276. doi: 10.1080/10436928.2011.596389

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C., & Voci, P. (2011). Brief encounters: Theorizing screen attachments outside the movie theatre. Screening the Past, 32. Retrieved from http://www.screeningthepast.com/2011/11/

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2010). Cinema that stays at home: The inexportable films of Belgium's Gaston Schoukens, Edith Kiel and Jan Vanderheyden. Screen, 51(3), 256-271. doi: 10.1093/screen/hjq015

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2008). Into the light: Re-considering off-frame and off-screen space in gallery films. New Review of Film & Television Studies, 6(3), 253-267. doi: 10.1080/17400300802418578

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2004). Room for experiment: Gallery films and vertical time from Maya Deren to Eija Liisa Ahtila. Screen, 45(4), 324-343.

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C. (2001). Sites of contestation: The place of Alfred Machin in early Belgian cinema. Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television, 21(4), 347-359.

Journal - Research Article

Fowler, C., & Redmond, S. (2021). Introduction. Media Practice & Education, 22(1), 1-4. doi: 10.1080/25741136.2021.1832764

Journal - Research Other

Fowler, C. (2019). Videographic exercises and radical pedagogy in the classroom. JCMS Teaching Dossier, 5(3). Retrieved from http://www.teachingmedia.org/videographic-exercises-and-radical-pedagogy-in-the-classroom/

Journal - Research Other

Fowler, C. (2015). [Review of the book Cinematic journeys: Film and movement]. Studies in European Cinema, 12(1), 87-90. doi: 10.1080/17411548.2014.973694

Journal - Research Other

Fowler, C. (2012). [Review of the book Chantal Akerman]. Modern & Contemporary France, 20(2), 277-278. doi: 10.1080/09639489.2012.665643

Journal - Research Other

Voci, P., & Fowler, C. (2011). Screen attachments: Introduction [Editorial]. Screening the Past, 32. Retrieved from http://www.screeningthepast.com/2011/11/an-introduction/

Journal - Research Other

Fowler, C. (2007). The dark, the light & the cop: An interview with Robert Sarkies. Illusions, 39, 14-17.