Cinepoetics – Center for Advanced Film Studies

Michael Cowan

Michael Cowan studied German, French, Film and Media Studies, and is head of the Film Studies Department at St Andrews University. He has taught at universities in Canada, Germany, the UK and the US.

His work encompasses film and the moving image, media theory and history (with a focus on early German cinema), visual and design cultures, the body and techniques of subjectivity, literature and the avant-garde.

In both his teaching and research, Cowan is interested in examining the role that visual media have played within changing understandings of the self, of knowledge and of culture in modernity.

Recent publications include an award-winning monograph on Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann and the Weimar Advertising Film; a comprehensive sourcebook of early German film theory; and articles on the emergence of cinephilia, screen cultures of Weimar cinema and film and radio between the wars.

For the Center for Advanced Film Studies Cinepoetics, the exchange with leading scholars from all over the world is of profound importance.

The fellow program is designed to support academics in their research on audio-visual images and enables them to bring their experience and expertise into the center in order to engage in critical dialogue.

The program is flexible in that it facilitates short-term collaborations as well as longer, project-oriented stays. In addition to inviting exceptional scholars (Senior Fellows) working in the field of research, project-specific calls for proposals explicitly address young academics (Research Fellows and Junior Fellows).

Furthermore, within the framework of selected project foci, the presence of Artists in Residence allows for productive debates with filmmakers and professional artists.