Graduate Studies, MA in Film Studies
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 program places emphasis on the conceptual issues current in the field, specifically on questions of critical and historical method relevant to the research and study of various national cinemas in relation to their global and transnational contexts. Other areas include: media technology and aesthetics, Canadian and Quebec cinema, animation, documentary cinema, new media, and film’s relationship to literature, theatre and music and other visual and performing arts.
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.
- Admission Requirements
- Our Two Streams
- Thesis MA Program
- Intensive MA Program
- Application Process
- Internship
- Careers
- The Capital Advantage
- 2013-2014 Graduate Courses
- Thesis Guidelines and Resources
- MA Thesis Titles
- PREP Services for Grad Students (FGPA site, Professional, Research, Employment and Personal Services)
During your first term, you should consider applying for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship and the Canada Graduate Scholarships. We encourage you to attend the workshops being offered by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. If you already know that you want to apply, we would encourage you to request copies of your transcripts soon.
Please note: the deadline for applying to the MA program for the fall of 2014 is February 1, 2014.
The minimum requirement for admission to the MA program 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, Music, Literature, Canadian Studies, Women’s Studies, or 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.
Students enrolled in the Film Studies M.A. must select one of the following two program streams:
- 4.0 credit Thesis stream
- 4.0 credit Intensive stream
See below for more information on each of the two streams.
You are also invited to contact the Graduate Supervisor in Film Studies, Professor Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano.
The Thesis MA is an opportunity to develop a broadly-based expertise in the discipline of Film Studies and to produce a substantial work of research. In accord with the current international orientation of the program, the specific focus is on the study of cinema in relation to the regional, national and local contexts and identities that make up the globalized world.
The stream consists of course work and a Master’s Thesis. The course work of the first year will provide students with an extensive knowledge of the field, as well as basic analytical and research skills. These will be applied in the second year to a thesis project. Students are expected to develop a thesis topic, in consultation with a faculty member, and to produce a thesis embodying the results of their research. The thesis should exhibit the student’s knowledge of the main critical and theoretical currents of the field, and demonstrate the student’s ability to present an argument in an organised and systematic way.
Students in the thesis stream will submit a detailed thesis proposal to the Film Studies Graduate committee no later than May 15 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. For guidelines on the preparation of thesis proposals, go to the Current Students’ Graduate Resources page.
Degree requirements
1.0 credit FILM 5000 (Core Seminar)
1.5 additional credits
1.5 FILM 5909 (M.A. Thesis)
Total of 4.0 credits required
In choosing the 1.5 additional credits beyond the core seminar, students may take 0.5 credit of coursework either outside the Film Studies program or from the fourth-year Honours courses in Film Studies subject to the approval of the Graduate Supervisor.
Through the combination of course work and a thesis, students are provided a foundation for other advanced degrees. Graduates from the program have continued to Ph.D. degrees in Film Studies, Communications, Cultural Studies and Literature, as well as the Ph.D in Cultural Mediations being offered by the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton University.
Click here for the full Graduate Calendar entry: program information and course descriptions for the Master of Arts in Film Studies
The Intensive MA is designed to offer students a broad exposure to the field by enhancing their academic formation in film theory and history. In accord with the current international orientation of the program, the specific focus is on the study of cinema in relation to the regional, national and local contexts and identities that make up the globalized world.
This stream consists of course work, a research essay and a career-oriented training component in the form of a Professional Workshop and an Internship.
The program offers students the opportunity to apply their knowledge, and their critical and research skills, in particular professional settings, by drawing on and expanding long established connections between the Film Studies Program and the Ottawa community.
The program will benefit students seeking to: (1) pursue their academic training in film; (2) enhance their prospects of employment in a film-related area of work; and (3) proceed more quickly to a PhD program.
Degree requirements:
1.0 credit FILM 5000 (Core Seminar)
2.0 additional credits (0.5 of these credits can include one of FILM 5801: Internship)
1.0 credit FILM 5908 Research Essay
Total of 4.0 credits required
In choosing the 2.0 additional credits beyond the core seminar, students may take 0.5 credit of coursework either outside the Film Studies program or from the fourth-year Honours courses in Film Studies subject to the approval of the Graduate Supervisor.
The research essay (FILM 5908)
The essay assignment will be an individual project on a topic of the student’s choice, and will be supervised by a faculty member. It will be based on research undertaken after admission into the program. Students will be required to submit a proposal for approval by their research essay supervisor no later than May 15. The length of the final essay should be between 30 and 50 pages, including bibliography.
Click here for the full Graduate Calendar entry: program information and course descriptions for the Master of Arts in Film Studies
(FAQ’s on the Graduate Studies Website)
Proceed to the application system via the “Apply Online!” system
Please note that the second language is an exit requirement, NOT an entrance requirement. It can be satisfied either by testing or by a course.
Please note: the deadline for applying to the MA program for the fall of 2014 is February 1, 2014.
Film Studies in Ottawa
The program takes full advantage of its location in Ottawa and its national institutions which offer opportunities for practica, internships and access to research materials unparalleled in Canada.
Links with the following institutions enhance the program’s academic and cultural profile locally, nationally and internationally:
- Moving Image and Sound Archives of the National Archives of Canada
- Canadian Film Institute
- Ottawa International Animation Festival
- Ottawa International Silent and Early Sound Film Festival
- IFCO – Independent Film Co-operative of Ottawa
- SAW Video
Many of our graduates have found fulfilling positions with organizations like Telefilm Canada, various film archives, film festivals, and film and television production companies, or they work as journalists, arts managers and independent artists.
The program also provides a solid preparation for students who intend to undertake graduate work in film and media studies, either at Carleton, through the M.A. in film and PhDs in Cultural Mediations and Canadian Studies, or at other institutions. One-third of all Honours students in Film Studies have gone on to graduate school.
Furthermore, our minor in Film Studies allows students from other disciplines to develop critical audiovisual literacy. Within a culture that is increasingly defined by its reliance on visual information, the comprehension of how meaning is produced through moving image media has become essential in diverse spheres of activity. Carleton’s Film Program has long played, and will continue to play, a leading role in giving students a solid education in a field recently singled out by Statistics Canada as the fastest-growing jobs sector in the economy.
Students are responsible for insuring that you select courses that meet the program requirements stated in the calendar. If, however, you feel that you need additional information or guidance please contact us. Barbara Shannon will be able to advise you on all administrative matters.
- Instructor: Charles O’Brien
- New Directions in Film Theory and Film History; 2012-2013
- FILM 5000 is the core seminar in the Film Studies graduate program. Its basic objective is to situate recent film-studies trends in the history of film theory and historiography. An additional aim is to facilitate the generation of research topics appropriate for MA research papers and thesis topics.
- The course divides roughly into two parts. During the fall term, we examine current film studies in light of the history of film theory and historiography. Topics include affinities between current film theory and the film-theoretical themes and concepts that emerged beginning in the first decades of the twentieth century when writers, critics, philosophers and academics sought to describe and analyze cinema as a new art form. Canonical texts in film theory by Munsterberg, Bazin, and others will be examined in light of more recent work by contemporary theorists involved in reviving, revising or critiquing earlier theoretical models and concepts. The development of film theory will be presented as a constantly changing body of thought, affected by dramatic changes over the decades to the cinema itself, and elaborated in response to contemporaneous social, political and economic transformations. In addition to covering the topics listed above, the course will also provide advice for the writing of applications for grants and fellowships.
- During the winter term, the focus will shift towards questions of national, transnational, global and world cinema, with an emphasis on the popular cinema of India. A detailed outline for the winter term will be available by 1 October 2013. During the winter term, students enrolled in the thesis stream can start working on their thesis project.
- Course requirements are as follows:
- Three in-class presentations/position papers on reading assignments (15% each) 45%
- Thesis topic outline, due in Feb. 0%
- In-class presentation of final paper topic, due in March 15%
- Final paper, due in April 40%
- Instructor: Malini Guha
- The Politics of the Image
- This course investigates the longstanding relationship between cinema and politics, moving across seminal debates in film studies that pivot around the question of whether or not the formal characteristics of a film are where its politics must lie. This course begins by examining the relationship between cinema and ideology as it coincides with the rise of political modernist filmmaking and other forms of militant cinema in the late 1960s to recent examples of political filmmaking that centre on racial, sexual and gendered identities as well as those that explore moments of political crisis and upheaval around the world. We will spend time thinking carefully about the tools of representation on offer in these films including, but not limited to, the use of archival footage, of documentary-style re-enactments, the use of spectacle or decorative imagery and so on. Alongside of these topics, a second trajectory will run through this course that addresses contemporary debates about whether or not film studies as a discipline is becoming increasingly depoliticized.
- Instructor: Paul Théberge
- This course will survey a number of textual and cultural modes of film analysis with a focus on the relationship between film theory and analytic frameworks and methodologies. Special, though not exclusive attention will be paid to the ways in which sound and music can figure into film analysis and to Science Fiction as a genre within film history and theory.
- Method of evaluation: two short papers, one or more in-class presentations, attendance & participation.
- Instructor: Aboubakar Sanogo
- This course will explore the theory, history and aesthetics of the documentary mode of filmmaking. As such it will examine major theoretical debates related to the very nature of documentary, and its relationship to larger debates such as truth, reality, fiction, representation, memory, history, identity, subjectivity, among other things. The history of the documentary form will also be examined through such canonic figures, schools and movements as the Lumiere brothers, Thomas Edison, Robert Flaherty, John Grierson, Dziga Vertov, Joris Ivens, Jean Rouch, Chris Marker, alongside such newer figures as Su Friedrich, Naomi Kawase, John Akomfrah, Harun Farocki and Ari Folman.
- Evaluation: Discussion leading, position paper, research paper.
- Instructor: Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano
- Anime
- Anime’s ability to cross the boundaries of culture and media challenges our attempts to place it within conventional categories. This course will examine how anime has been constructed in journalistic or academic writings. We map anime across various paradigms such as history, genre, and media.
Thesis Guidelines and Resources
As students in the MA program, you will have access to our substantial film, videotape and DVD holdings that are housed in the Audio-Visual Resource Centre, 460 St. Patrick’s Building. Please contact Diane Berezowski, the Assistant Coordinator, Circulation, for information. Click here for AVRC borrowing policies and procedures.
In addition to these materials, make use of the substantial research collection that was donated to the program by the National Film Archives, the National Film Board Reference Library and Prof. Peter Harcourt. This collection consists of a wide range of printed materials, such as film journals, periodicals, trade publications and newsletters, reference books, industry indexes, guides to resources and books. It is available for on-site consultation in the Audio-Visual Resource Centre (SP460).
Guidelines for MA Theses 2012-13