Research Activity
The Centre is characterised by research into the Transnational Life of Film, which it explores in terms of representation, circulation and preservation. Our research embraces the cinemas of the world, including the various mainstream industries (i.e. Nollywood, Bollywood, Hollywood) alongside the international festival circuit, as well as established, emerging, small and peripheral cinemas from around the globe. Our research focuses on the global interactions that film encounters and facilitates on its travels - the transnational life of film.
Within this paradigm, the Centre drives research across several key, targeted areas, which together construct two primary research clusters.
The Dynamics of Transnational Film Circulation
The Centre is the world's leading hub for research into film festivals. This research activity, led by Professor Dina Iordanova encompasses various projects, including: the Leverhulme funded project The Dynamics of World Cinema; the Royal Society of Edinburgh-funded Scottish Film Festival Studies Network, and the establishment of a publishing house, St Andrews Films Studies, which is responsible for the annual Film Festival Yearbooks amongst other publications. This research is joined by work on film history that stems from the early silent era onwards, in which such topics as colonial film, film archiving, and the role of film activism are understood transnationally, thereby furthering the cluster's strong historical and geopolitical emphasis.
The Transnational Tensions of Identity Construction in Film
Research in the Centre is marked by a shared interest in identity construction in film which permeates much of our scholarship. The Centre's inaugural conference identified a key growth area for research, Cinema at the Periphery. The resulting anthology was the first to explore the imagining of identities from peripheral cinemas worldwide. Our research also embraces the centre, along with the periphery. Professor Robert Burgoyne provides research leadership on film, history and identity, including hosting international colloquia on such topics as Film and History and War and Cinema, which have resulted in numerous publications. Professor Richard Dyer continues his career-long intellectual project of exploring representation and entertainment (focusing on gender, ‘race' and sexuality). This work is joined by explorations of identities using a range of theoretical approaches (e.g. queer theory, film-philosophy) and historically informed work (on the realities of the floating or cross-border lives explored through films about diasporas and other transnational communities, migration, human trafficking under globalization, genocide, imperialism, etc.).
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