Michael Cowan

Biography

My degrees are in French, German and Cultural Studies, and I have taught at universities in Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. My research has won awards from the major Film Studies associations in both North America and Europe. My work encompasses film, visual culture and media history, with a focus on European modernity. In both my teaching and research, I am interested in understanding the changing role that images (still and moving, analogue and digital) have played within longer histories of knowledge, selves and governmentality. My approach is highly interdisciplinary, and I am particularly drawn to objects and questions that challenge us to rethink sedimented categories (methodological, intellectual and disciplinary). My work on advertising film, for example, examined the crucial role that advertising played both in modernist/avant-garde film culture (in experimental film, animation, montage, and mobile screen technologies) and, more broadly, in transforming modernity’s understanding of what it meant to interact with images. Currently, I am working on several projects examining the early history of film societies, ‘useful animation,’ early film theory and digital screen cultures. I serve on the executive committee of Domitor and the editorial board of the journal Intermédialités. I am a member of several research groups and networks, including the Media History Research Centre, the German Studies Screen Network, the Agency of the Image (Scottish network for visual culture) and BTWH (Berkeley, Tübingen, Wien, Harvard): The Emergence of German Modernity.

Research Interest

My main areas of expertise are European film, visual culture and media history, particularly in the French and German contexts. Related interests include digital theory, film theory, experimental film and non-theatrical cinema.