Film Studies at UBC

Teaching Interests/Courses Taught Last Five years

• FIST 200 Intro to Canadian Cinema
• FIST 210 Silent Cinema
• FIST 334 Studies in Documentary
• FIST 336 Studies in European Cinema
• FIST 430 Studies in Auteurism
• FIST 500 Research Methods
• Arts One Program

Selected Publications

Genre and Cinema: Ireland and Transnationalism, ed. Brian McIlroy (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).

A Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts of Madame Butterfly, eds. Jonathan Wisenthal, Sherill Grace, Melinda Boyd, Brian McIlroy and Vera Micznik. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).

Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the Troubles in Northern Ireland (Richmond, B.C.: Steveston Press, 2001).

Auteur/provocateur: The Films of Denys Arcand, eds. Andre Loiselle and Brian McIlroy (Westport, CT.: Praeger, 1995).

Irish Cinema: An Illustrated History (Dublin: Anna Livia Press, 1988)

World Cinema 2: Sweden (London Flicks Books, 1986).

Professional Service (selected)

Chair, Film Studies Program, 1997-99, 2004-07.
External Reviewer (University of Toronto Cinema Studies Program, 2005; Brock University Communications, Popular Culture and Film MA program, 2008).
Juror, SSHRC Raymond Klibansky Prize (2006)
BA Film Studies Advisor, 2002-2006; MA Film Studies Advisor, 1989-2006.
Tenure and Promotion reviewer (Carleton University, Boston University, North Carolina State University)
Book and manuscript reviewer for Minnesota University Press, Syracuse University Press, Oxford University Press.

Recent Graduate MA Thesis Supervisions:

Brent Strang (2010) "The Postmortem Western: From Unforgiven to No Country For Old Men"

Renee Penney (2010) "Desperately Seeking Redundancy: Romantic Comedy and The Queer Festival Audience"

Katherine Barcasy, "Profit and Production: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice on Film" (2008)

Richard Colin Tait, "Assassin Nation: Theorizing the Conspiracy Film in the Early 21st Century" (2007)

Jennie Carlsten, "A Cinema of Resistance, A Resistance of Cinema: On the Limits and Possibilities of Northern Ireland's Commemorative Cinema" (2005)

Brock Poulin, "Dark Time(s): Non-Linear Narratives in the Postmodern Film Noir" (2005)

RECENT REFEREED PUBLICATIONS (since 2007)

• “The Attractions of Repetition: Tarantino’s Sonic Style.”  Music, Sound and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema. Ed. James Wierzbicki. New York: Routledge, May 4, 2012: 165-174.
•  “’Violence Makes Victims of us all’: Pathos, Vengeance and the politics of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River.” European Journal of American Culture. 30.1 (Spring 2011): 43-55.
• “Negative Ethics: The Missed Event in the French Films of Michael Haneke.”  Studies in French Cinema 11.1 (2011): 71-88.
•  “Ethical Violence: Suicide as Authentic Act in the Films of Michael Haneke.” The Cinema of Michael Haneke: Europe Utopia. Eds. Ben McCann and David Sorfa. New York: Columbia University Press, May 2012: pp 1-27.
• “Torture Tunes: Tarantino, popular music and new Hollywood Ultraviolence.” Popular Music and Multimedia. Ed. Julie McQuinn. London: Ashgate,2011: 56-64. (reprint).
• “Violent Aurality: Listening to New French Extremism.”  The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe. Eds. Tanya Horeck and Tina Kendall. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2010. 180-191.
• "The Scream of Rape: Bruno Dumont's Twenty-Nine Palms." Rape in Art Cinema. Ed. Dominique Russell. London, UK: Continuum Press, 2010. 171-185.
• “Listening to Silence: The Films of Michael Haneke.” Cinephile (May 2010): 18-24.
• “Desublimating Desire: Courtly Love and Catherine Breillat.”  Journal for Cultural Research 14.1 (January 2010): 57-69.
• "Torture Tunes: Tarantino, Popular Music and New Hollywood Ultraviolence." Music and the Moving Image 2.2 (Summer 2009): 1-7.
• "Uncanny Memories: Stan Douglas, Subjectivity and the Cinema." Scope: an online journal of film and tv studies 12 (October 2008): 1–14 (online journal).
• "Killing Bill: Rethinking Feminism and Film Violence." Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Eds. Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2007. 153-175.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

• “Quentin Tarantino.” Oxford Bibliographies Online: Cinema and Media

Studies. Series Editor: Krin Gabbard. October, 2012.

•  “’Let’s Get Stinko’: Melodrama and the Mundane in Todd Haynes’s Mildred Pierce.” FLOWTV journal. University of Texas, Austin. April 22, 2011.
• “Drunk History and Displaced Vocality,” FLOWTV journal, University of Texas, Austin, February, 2011.
• “Subjectivity as stand-in: display and displacement in Robert Arndt’s Placeholder,” Artspeak Postscript, March, 2011.
• "Imitation and Life: Ming Wong, Pastiche and Melodramatic Affect.” Portrait. Ed. Jenifer Papararo.  Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery (June 2010). 57-65.
•  “The Hotness of Cold Opens: Breaking Bad and the Serial Narrative as Puzzle,” FLOWTV journal, University of Texas, Austin, November, 2010.
• “We’re Gonna Need a Montage: Musical Cliche and the CSI franchise, ” FLOWTV journal, University of Texas, Austin, September, 2010.
• “That’s not blood, that’s music: Dexter’s serial musicality,” FLOWTV journal, University of Texas, Austin, July 2010.
• “Familiarity Breeds Desire: Seriality and the Televisual Title Sequence,” FLOWTV journal, University of Texas, Austin, July 2010.
• "Suicidal Effects: Michael Haneke's Seventh Continent." Metro Cinema(special edition on the films of Michael Haneke), ed. William Beard (March 2009): 14-18.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE (Selected)
Chair of the Editorial Board and Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies
Editorial Board, The International Journal of Zizek Studies
Editorial Board, The Soundtrack
Green College Faculty Council
BA and MA advisor, 2006-2010

Teaching Interests/Courses Taught Recently:

• FIST 200: Intro to Canadian Cinema
• FIST 300: Cult Cinema
• FIST 331: Film Theory
• FIST 534b: Seminar in Film Studies: David Cronenberg
• DRAM 201: Modern and Contemporary Drama
• DRAM 300: Theory of Performance and Dramaturgy
• THTR445: From Stage to Screen

Selected Publications:

Mathijs, Ernest (2008), The Cinema of David Cronenberg: From Baron of Blood to Cultural Hero. London: Wallflower Press. 317 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest and Xavier Mendik (eds) (2007). The Cult Film Reader. London/New York: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill. 549 pages.

Barker, Martin and Ernest Mathijs (eds) (2007). Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkienճ World Audiences. New York: Peter Lang. 297 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest (ed) (2006), The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context, London: Wallflower Press. 341 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest and Murray Pomerance (eds) (2006). From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. New York/Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi. 403 pages.

Barker, Martin, Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik (2006), Menstrual Monsters: The Reception of the Ginger Snaps Cult Horror Franchise, Film International, 21 (4/3), 68-77.

Mathijs, Ernest (2005), Bad Reputations: the Reception of Trash Cinema, Screen, 46 (4), 451-472.

Mathijs, Ernest (2004), Nobody is Innocent: Cinema and Sexuality in Contemporary Belgian Culture, Social Semiotics, 14 (1), 85-101.

Mathijs, Ernest and Janet Jones (eds.) (2004). Big Brother International: Format, Critics and Publics. London: Wallflower Press. 261 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest and Xavier Mendik (eds) (2004). Alternative Europe; European Exploitation and Underground Cinema Since 1945. London: Wallflower Press. 269 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest (ed.) (2004), The Cinema of the Low Countries, London: Wallflower Press. 266 pages.

Mathijs, Ernest (2003), ԁIDS References in the Critical Reception of David Cronenberg: It May Not Be Such a Bad Disease after All. Cinema Journal, 42 (4), 29-45

Mathijs, Ernest (2002), Big Brother and Critical Discourse: the Reception of Big Brother Belgium, Television and New Media, 3 (3), 311-322.

I have also contributed several dozen entries to the encyclopedia 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 100 European Horror Films, 101 Horror Films You Must See Before You Die, 101 Science-Fiction Films You Must See Before You Die, 501 Movie Directors, and 501 Movie Stars.

Professional Service (Selected):

BA and MA advisor (Spring 2008 and Spring 2009)

Chair of the editorial board of Participations, online Journal for Audience and Reception Research (www.participations.org) (2003-ongoing).

Editor of the book series: Contemporary Cinema (Editions Rodopi): www.centreforcinemastudies.com (with Steven Jay Schneider) (2003-ongoing).

Editor of the book series: Cultographies (Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press): www.cultographies.com (with Jamie Sexton) (2005-ongoing).

Recent Graduate MA Thesis Supervisions:

Brenda Cromb, Abivalent Passion: Pedro Almodovar Postmodern Melodrama

Andrew deWaard, Malraux and the Intertextual Museum: towards a Cultural Economy of Intermediality

Graeme Krautheim, Subjectivity, Pornography, and the Construction of Comfort: Liliana Cavani, The Night Porter and Seed of Evil

Project outline: Image, music, and the aesthetic heritage of interactive digital media

Do we recognize the aesthetic traditions of cinema in a new world of digital and interactive media? This project examines how established formal conventions of the moving image persist in newer forms of media. Specifically, I ask how visual representations of popular music in the video game genre known as 'rhythm games' (i.e. Rock Band; Guitar Hero) are central to the user’s comprehension of game goals and structure interactivity by way of digital media’s reliance upon a longer tradition of visual representations of popular music in film and television, specifically documentary. The uniqueness of this particular form of interactive digital media is the explicitness with which the old and the new co-exist in a video game which is both a participant in, and a receptacle for, the visual culture of popular music. The project is informed by a cluster of inter-related theories on the relationship between digital media and ‘older’ regimes of audiovisual representation, and ideas on ‘re-uncovering’ cultural history through acts of, and references to, connoisseurship and collecting. At the core are two concepts concerned with the historical mediation of culture: the concept of residual media (media once thought obsolete that find new use), and the theory of remediation, which posits “what is in fact new [about new media] is the particular way in which each innovation rearranges and reconstitutes the meaning of earlier elements.”

Other research interests include globalization and culture, film and TV co-production, interactive and alternative media, and social movements. She has published several journal articles and book chapters on these topics in Canada, the U.S., England, Australia and China (also see http://members.shaw.ca/baltruschat/). Her new book is titled Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television (Routledge, 2010). She holds an MA from the University of Leicester in the UK and a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University.

Selected Publications:

Baltruschat, D. (2010). Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television. New York: Routledge.
Baltruschat, D. (forthcoming) Ԃranded Entertainmentծ In G. Sussman (Ed.), The Propaganda Society: Neoliberalism and the Regime of Public Persuasion. New York: Peter Lang.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). Auditioning for ҉dolӺ The Audience Dimension of Format Franchising. In A. Moran (Ed.), Localising Global TV: New Perspectives On Program Formats. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). First Nations Narratives in International Film and TV Co-productions: The Journals of Knud Rasmussen In S. B. Hafsteinsson & M. Bredin (Eds.), Indigenous Screens. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). Book Review of ԏutside Looking In: Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series by Mary Jane Miller. Great Plains Quarterly, 30(3), 240 41.
Baltruschat, D. (2009). Reality TV Formats: The Case of Canadian Idol. Canadian Journal of Communication, Special Issue.
Baltruschat, D. (2008). Film and Television Formats: The Cross-Border Adaptation of Interactive Media Productions. In J. Wasko & M. Erickson (Eds.), Cross-Border Cultural Production. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press.
Baltruschat, D. (2008). Global Media Ecologies: Networked Film and TV Production and the Interactive Audience. London, U.K.: London School of Economics (LSE Research on-line archives).
Baltruschat, D. (2007). The New Media Geography of Global and Local Production Networks. Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 124, 134б44.
Baltruschat, D. (2006). Global Civil Society and Media/Democracy Action. International Journal of the Humanities, 3(3), 53 4.
Baltruschat, D. (2004). The ABC of Media Education. Feliciter, 50(5), 190б92. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Library Association.
Baltruschat, D. (2004). Television and Canada's Aboriginal Communities: Seeking Opportunities through Digital Technologies. Canadian Journal of Communication, 29(1), 47е9.
Baltruschat, D. (2003). International Film and TV Co-productions: A Canadian Case Study. In S. Cottle (Ed.), Media Organization and Production. London: Sage Publications. Translated and reprinted 2005 by Fudan University Press, Shanghai, China.

Professional Service, Academic and in the Media field (Selected):

Reviewer of articles and books for the Canadian Journal of Communication, The International Journal of the Humanities, Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy and Great Plains Quarterly.

Participant in Canadian New Media Fund consultations with industry and stakeholders for the development of program guidelines, 2009 and 2010.

External evaluator for SSHRCs standard research grants competition.

Juror, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, 2007.

Vice President of Canadian Association for Media Educators, 2003 and 2004.

Planning committee member and workshop facilitator for media and Democracy Day conferences, Vancouver, BC.

Planning committee member for BC Ministry of Education conferences on learning technologies.

Post-doctoral Research Opportunities:

The Centre for Cinema Studies welcomes researchers wishing to conduct post-doctoral research during a prolonged stay (1-3 years).

In order to allow us to collaborate on and fully support applications for the funding of your stay, we recommend you contact us well in advance of the deadlines of international and national granting agencies (for Social Science and Humanities Research Council deadlines, visit their website).