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.
Publications
Fowler, C. (2023, April). (How) do I add the images in movies? University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. [Inaugural Professorial Lecture].
Other Research Output
Fowler, C. (2023). 'My dearest little girl, I just got your letter and I hope that you will continue to write to me often': Epistolary listening in News from home (Chantal Akerman, 1976). In T. Higgins & C. Fowler (Eds.), Epistolary entanglements in film, media and the visual arts. (pp. 55-69). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. doi: 10.5117/9789463729666_ch02
Chapter in Book - Research
Higgins, T., & Fowler, C. (Eds.). (2023). Epistolary entanglements in film, media and the visual arts. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 280p. doi: 10.5117/9789463729666
Edited Book - Research
Higgins, T., & Fowler, C. (2023). Doing (audio-visual) things with words: From epistolary intent to epistolary entanglements: An introduction. In T. Higgins & C. Fowler (Eds.), Epistolary entanglements in film, media and the visual arts. (pp. 9-38). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. doi: 10.5117/9789463729666_intro
Chapter in Book - Research
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
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). 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
Journal - Research Other
Fitzgerald, R., & Fowler, C. (2019, October). Starting a conversation about assessing with sounds and images. Verbal presentation at the Teaching and Learning Symposium: Pride in the Humanities, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Stringer, R., Fowler, C., and Overell, R. (2019, March). Terror nullius: Screening and discussion panel. Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand. [Public Discussion].
Other Research Output
Fowler, C. (2018, November). Waru (New Zealand, 2017): Women’s cinema as counter-cinema revisited. Verbal presentation at the Second Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (SSAAANZ) Conference: The Uses of Cinema, Melborne, Australia.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (2017). Becoming awhere in Aotearoa New Zealand: Vincent Ward's exhibition Breath: The Fleeting Intensity of Life (2011). The Thickness of Cinema: Collected Interviews and Presentations from the Circuit Symposium and Artist's Week. Retrieved from https://www.circuit.org.nz/blog/e-book-the-thickness-of-cinema
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Full paper
Fowler, C. (2017). Artistic moving images in the gallery and unscripted realities. Proceedings of the Screenwriting Research Network Conference: Screenwriting: Fact and Fiction, Truth and Real. Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/srn-2017/conference/otago634451.html
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2017, March). Manifesto four for dynamic forms: The precarity, provisionality and chaos of artistic installations. Verbal presentation at the 58th Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS) Annual Conference, Chicago, USA.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2016). Thinking topologically: Contaminated histories of art and film. In D. Cavalloti, F. Giordano & L. Quaresima (Eds.), A history of cinema without names. (pp. 157-164). Milan, Italy: Mimesis Edizioni. [Full Paper]
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Full paper
Fowler, C., & Redmond, S. (2016, November). Video essay workshop. Verbal presentation at the First Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (SSAAANZ) Conference, Wellington, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (curator) (2016, 21 November). Far away, so close: On belonging. A programme of short films, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand. [Film Screening].
Other Research Output
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. (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. (2015). Sound's relational geography: New vocabulary for film studies in the art gallery. Proceedings of the XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) Conference. (pp. 63). Retrieved from https://www.ivvy.com/event/FHAANZ/
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2015, March). From long takes to long looks: Artists thinking outside the (black) box. Verbal presentation at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (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. (2013). Roots forward, routes back: Isaac Julien's radicant moving image art. Proceedings of the 23rd International Screen Studies Conference. Retrieved from http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/screen/conference2015/pastconferences/
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2013, May). Undoing cinema: Moving images relations since 1990. Verbal presentation at the Media, Film and Communication Research Seminar: Intermediations, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (2012). [Review of the book Chantal Akerman]. Modern & Contemporary France, 20(2), 277-278. doi: 10.1080/09639489.2012.665643
Journal - Research Other
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. (2011). Remembering cinema 'elsewhere': Introspection in gallery films. Proceedings of the Screen Cultures Conference. Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/languagescultures/screencultures.html
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2011, July). Following cinema's digital passage: Through the museum. Verbal presentation at the Moving Image and Institution Conference: Cinema and the Museum in the 21st Century, Cambridge, UK.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2011, September). Slow cinema and other temporalities of viewing. Verbal presentation at the World Cinema Now: Second Biennial Conference, Melbourne, Australia.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (2010, February). Beyond the visible: Remaking the cinema's past in the gallery. Verbal presentation at the Cinema in the Digital Age Symposium, Wellington, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2010, March). Do I add to the images in movies? Pensiveness and the moving image in gallery films. Verbal presentation at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS) Annual Conference, Los Angeles, California.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2010, November-December). The moving image's passage from actuality to potentiality in the gallery film. Verbal presentation at the XVth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand: Cinema, Modernity and Modernism, Sydney, Australia.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (2009, July). The passage between images: The wandering woman from Maya Deren to recent gallery films. Verbal presentation at the 19th International Screen Studies Conference: Screen Theorizing Today, Glasgow, UK.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2009). Phil Collins (1p.). Exhibition catalogue essay for Double Take: The Anna Landa Award 2009 for video & new media arts, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. [Exhibition Catalogue].
Other Research Output
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. (2008). Introspective and circumspective histories of the cinema in contemporary gallery films. In C. Fowler & R. Simmons (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIVth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (Vol. 1: Refereed Abstracts). (pp. 28). Dunedin, New Zealand: Department of Film, Media and Communication, University of Otago. [Abstract]
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2008). Sally Potter and other women artists. Proceedings of the 1970s British Culture Conference. Retrieved from http://www.1970sproject.co.uk/events/panelorder.php
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2008, June). Re-thinking film history, re-making cinema in the gallery space. Verbal presentation at the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies, Budapest, Hungary.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2007). The dark, the light & the cop: An interview with Robert Sarkies. Illusions, 39, 14-17.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2007). Taking it and faking it: Performances of the self in recent gallery films. Proceedings of the Cultural Transformations Research Network Annual Symposium. Dunedin, New Zealand: Division of Humanities, University of Otago. Retrieved from http://www.otago.ac.nz/humanities/research/networks/transformations/
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2007, August). Genre and the gaze. Verbal presentation at the Department of Media, Film and Communication One Day Symposium on Genre, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2007, December). The passage between images: The wandering woman from Maya Deren to recent gallery films. Verbal presentation at the Self-Narratives 'A Research Conversation' Day, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2007, October). Back to the future: Film history revisited in the gallery film. Verbal presentation at the Glasgow School of Art International Interdisciplinary Conference, Glasgow, Scotland.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (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. (2006). An exploration of the influencing factors that might encourage successful learners. In R. Spronken-Smith (Ed.), Proceedings of the Spotlight on Teaching at Otago Conference. (pp. 26). Dunedin, New Zealand: HEDC, University of Otago. [Abstract]
Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Fowler, C. (2006, July). Back to the future: Film history revisited in the gallery film and re-mastered. Verbal presentation at the Experimental Histories in the Arts International Conference, Sydney, Australia.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2006, June). Revealing the edges of the frame: Off-screen space reconsidered in gallery films. Verbal presentation at the On Space Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2006, November). Into the light: Revealing the edges of the frame in gallery films. Verbal presentation at the XIIIth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2005, June). The gallery as the twenty fifth frame: Explored through Chantal Akerman′s installations. Verbal presentation at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (2005, March-April). Frames for celebrity: From Sam Taylor Wood's David to Andy Warhol's Sleep. Verbal presentation at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS) Conference, London, UK.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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
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. (2004). The day I will never forget: An interview with Kim Longinotto. Women, 15(1), 101-107.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
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. (2003). [Review of the book Popular cinemas of Europe: Texts, contexts and frameworks]. Screen, 44(2), 246-249.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2003). The film I will never forget: Documentary film-maker Kim Longinotto in conversation. Vertigo, 2(5), 22-23.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2003, July). Room for experiment: Re-frame or new frame? The gallery space. Verbal presentation at the Experimental Film Today, Preston, Lancashire, UK.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Fowler, C. (Ed.). (2002). The European cinema reader. London, UK: Routledge, 255p.
Edited Book - Research
Fowler, C. (2002). Doing time [Review of the installation Woman sitting down after killing]. Vertigo, 2(2), 48.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2002). Drake reading light [Review of the book Light readings: Film criticism and screen arts]. Film-Philosophy, 6(18). Retrieved from http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n18fowler
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2002). I′m Spartacus! On no longer seeing films made by women. Vertigo, 2(3), 44-45.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Fowler, C. (2002, May). Mistress of suspense: Chantal Ackerman′s The captive. Verbal presentation at the Society for Cinema Studies Conference, Denver, CO, USA.
Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
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. (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., & Küppers, P. (2000). The 22nd Créteil Women′s Film Festival, 24 March-2 April 2000. Screen, 41(3), 330-333.
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
BA(Hons)(Bulmershe) PhD(Warw)