MAIN INSTRUCTOR

I taught as a main instructor and designed two 60 students 300-level classes in the Undergrad Film studies program at Concordia University: FMST398 Studies in Fandom and FMST320 Digital Media and Animation.

FMST320 Digital Media and Animation:

Since the advent of digital media, animation practices have grown exponentially, generating a wealth of animation scholarship. This course aims to introduce students to the proliferating forms of animation and digital media (or new media) since the 1990s, and to new ways of thinking and writing about animation as a medium. Among the topics this class will cover are: Japanese animation or anime, animated documentary, interactive media, pornographic animation, special effects, labor in animation production, video games and machinima and branded animation. As we explore new forms of animation, you will be introduced to the critical tools used to engage with animation, including recent developments within film studies, animation theory, and media studies. The ultimate aims of this course are to allow students to see, think and write about the place of digital media in relation to older modes of animation, to learn to be conversant with the critical theories used to analyze animation, and to develop their own answer(s) to the question, what is digital animation?

Week 1: Animation is Everywhere: An Introduction to Digital Media and Animation

Week 2: Stasis as Aesthetic: Moving Drawings in Anime

Week 3: Stasis as Aesthetic: Marketing and Worldbuilding

Week 4: Animated Documentaries

Week 5: Machinima as Cinema

Week 6: Watching Video Games

Week 7: Indigenous Cyber Animation

Week 8: The Animated Performance of Race

Week 9: Labor and Race in Animation Industries

Week 10: The Politics of Special Effects

Week 11: Visualizing the Capitalist Internet

Week 12: The Memetic Circulation of Animated Media

Week 13: (De)platforming Pornographic Animation

FMST398 Studies in Fandom:

Since its early theorization, fandom’s power and influence has grown exponentially over the years, up to being at the forefront of current analysis of political movements. From fans as driving forces behind distribution strategies to the spread of fan-generated content evolving into a cultural industry all its own, this course seeks to provide a comprehensive study of fandom in its complexity. Starting from an analysis of audience and spectatorship, allowing us to browse through cultural studies of reception, we will then dive into the fan studies that originated from them. There, we will examine concepts related to gender identities, aca-fandom, fan-produced content, fan representation on screen, so-called “cancel culture”, and fandom spaces on/offline. The course will be driven by current discussions within the field of fan studies related to identities, such as the (in)visibility of race/ism in fandom and fan studies. As we explore these subjects, students will be introduced to critical tools that will allow them to comprehend audience reception. This course aims to encourage students to think of others and themselves as active interpreters of images, constantly engaged in processes of media consumption, as well as helping them to understand the fundamental role that fandom plays nowadays in politics, whether they be of identity, culture, or democracy.

Week 1: What is an audience?

Week 2: Encoding/decoding spectatorship

Week 3: How to recognize interpretive communities when you see them?

Week 4: Looking for fan studies

Week 5: Navigating fandom spaces off and online

Week 6: Who is the Fan Girl? Part 1

Week 7: Who is the Fan Girl? Part 2

Week 8: Who fears the Fan Boy?

Week 9: Onscreen fanfiction

Week 10: Building an industry: the prosumers

Week 11: Who and how to research fans? The aca-fan!

Week 12: Do It for the “Cancel Culture”

Week 13: Students discussion week

TEACHING ASSISTANT

I have also worked as a Teaching Assistant for the following courses:

FMST391. Sexual Representation in Cinema. Concordia University (Winter 2023)

FMST392. Queer Cinema. Concordia University (Fall 2021)

FMST320. Digital Media and Animation. Concordia University (Winter 2021)

FMST398. Cinema and the Internet. Concordia University (Fall 2020)

FMST218. History of Animation Films. Concordia University (Winter 2020)

Additional teaching resources

In collaboration with the ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives Project team members, I translated from English to French Canadian three of their education resources aiming to support Canadian educators in incorporating queer and trans perspectives in curricula: 2SLGBTQIA+ Stories: An Adaptable Mini-Unit Plan for English or History Classrooms (244 pages), Becoming 2SLGBTQIA+ Literate (98 pages) and 2SLGBTQIA+ School Advocacy (28 pages).