People Directory

I am working on cultures of urban mobility and community, particularly those that resist petrocultures and further equity. My collaborative documentary Rodando en La Habana: bicycle stories is part of this research. Currently preparing a monograph about several global cities, I am particularly interested in how motion shapes how we continuously become in the world. My larger published works are Sun, Sex, and Socialism: Cuba in the German Imaginary and the co-edited anthologies Cultural Topographies of the New Berlin and Christa Wolf A Companion. I also developed and run an etandem platform for language learning www.LinguaeLive.ca. I did my PhD in Comparative Literature at Berkeley and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford. At Berkeley, the Weimar film specialist Anton Kaes and Frankfurt School and Habermas expert Robert Holub were my advisors. I typically approach narrative fiction and documentary by triangulating historicization/contextualization, theory, and attention to the language of the artistic text; I would be particularly amenable to working with students who find this approach productive.

http://www.queensu.ca/llcu/german/people/jennifer-hosek

Jenn E Norton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media, specializing in 3D animation, augmented reality, and video installation. 

Jung-Ah Kim (She/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher/artist based in Canada. She is a PhD candidate in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University and received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University (2019) in Chicago. Her research centres on investigating her relationship with a discovered Korean traditional carpet in Canada.

I am an Associate Professor in the Film and Media department of Queen’s University and co-director (with F. Grandena, U of Ottawa) of the inter-university research group EPIC (Esthétique et politique de l’image cinématographique). My research interests are centered around Indigenous film and poetry, Quebec cinema, road movies, transnational cinemas and oral practices of cinema. I am  presently the lead researcher for one of the Archive Counter Archive research project (financed by SSHRC) on Arnait Video Productions collective of Inuit women. My latest publications include book chapters on the rock group U2 (Mackenzie and Iversen, 2021) and on the exploration of Indigenous lands (Cahill and Caminati, 2020) as well as an article on Indigenous women and testimonies (Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 2020) an article on Québécois cinema and Americanité (American Review of Canadian Studies, 2019) and a book chapter on Canadian and Québécois Indigenous cinemas (Oxford Handbook to Canadian Cinema, 2019). In terms of supervision, I am interested in film history, film criticism, Indigenous, Québécois and transnational cinemas, cinema and landscapes, as well as documentary filmmaking and road movies from around the world (especially women on the road).

Kelly O’Dette is the new Film and Media Department Technician.  Kelly has worked as editor in film and television in Toronto for the past 10 years.  She has experience with various genres such as comedy and documentary.  She also worked as a post-production supervisor overseeing project workflow and delivery.  Kelly holds a BFA from NSCAD University and an MFA from Western University. 

Keren Zaiontz is Assistant Professor and Queen’s National Scholar in Creative Industries in the Global City in the Department of Film and Media and Cultural Studies Graduate Program. She teaches interdisciplinary courses on cultural and performance studies, critical creative industries, cinematic urbanism, and media and performance. Her research examines the cultural politics of contemporary art and performance and includes work on participatory modes of spectatorship, art activism, experimental disability arts, and the production of urban festivals and mega-events.

Music, violence and trauma; music and nationhood; music and gender. Recent publications examine music and cultural trauma (Singing Death: Reflections on Music and Mortality, 2017), American popular music in the aftermath of 9/11 (Music and War in the United States, 2019), and Canadian combatants, music, and the remembrance of war (MUSICultures, (2019).

https://www.universityresearch.ca/researchers/dr-kip-pegley/

Lindsay K. Muir is a Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies Ph.D. student within the Film and Media department at Queen’s University. She recently completed her M.A. in the same department with her thesis, Where the Willow Meets the Moon: Lessons in Settler Curation Through Indigenous Storytelling. Prior to graduate school, Lindsay earned a double major in Art History and English Literature with a minor in World Cinemas from McGill University. Her current research revolves around the representations of Celtic and Indigenous women in various media.

Manal Osman is a 21-year-old MA student in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies. Obtaining a Mass Media and Communications degree from the University of Balamand, she is an advocate of storytelling and cinema. Her education involves exploring textual media studies, writing prose, and creating moving image.   

Current research interests include continuing work on electronic music composer David Tudor, which began in the early 1990s, and a project more recently begun in collaboration with Dr Laura J Cameron investigating the life and practice of early Canadian field recordist William WH Gunn. In both cases the research is expressed through both published papers and works of research-creation. I am also continually developing other streams of research: an alphabet of 26 electroacoustic compositions revisiting 26 other composers' sonorities is in progress, and I regularly create sound design/scores for theatre and film. Another of my pursuits is audio recording and production in diverse genres, and some albums made with Kingston musicians have received wide recognition including Polaris Prize and JUNO nominations.

https://sdm.queensu.ca/matt-rogalsky/

Mehvish Rather is pursuing research in the field of documentary filmmaking. Being a documentary filmmaker herself, with her films being showcased in different film festivals across the globe, she continues to question the methodology and ethics in her field. Her particular interest concerns with the representation of subjects in documentaries based in protracted political conflict zones, trying to envision them beyond the scope of victimhood. She questions the patterns of absences within such documentaries, such as that of humour and transcendentality. Her research is a combination of critique of existing documentary work in and about Kashmir as well as an exploration of alternative and experimental modes for responsible representation of documentary subjects. The cornerstone of this research is understanding, learning, and finding ways to represent documentary subjects of this long-term conflict zone without victimizing them. Currently her work is focusing on the impact of digital surveillance on communication channels at interpersonal and community levels – and the viability of old media technology in circumventing the issues.

Dr. Mél Hogan is the host of The Data Fix podcast (thedatafix.net) and Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML) (environmentalmedialab.com). As of 2024, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media at Queen's University. Her research focuses on data infrastructure, extractive AI, and genomic media, each understood from within the contexts of planetary catastrophe and collective anxieties about the future. For more: http://melhogan.com.

Michael Wheeler is Director of Artistic Research at SpiderWebShow Performance, Canada’s first live digital performance company. He was previously Executive Director and Transformation Designer of Generator, a mentoring, teaching, and innovation incubator in Toronto that empowers independent artists, producers and leaders. He has also been a curator of The Freefall Festival with The Theatre Centre, curator of HATCH emerging artist projects with Harbourfront Centre, and an Intern Director at The Shaw Festival.

Michael is a Co-Curator of FOLDA (The Festival of Live Digital Art) occurring annually in June at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. Directing credits include Behaviour at GCTC, Objections to Sex and Violence at Artscape Sandbox, Rifles at NSTF, and You Should Have Stayed Home National Tour. He holds a BA (distinction) from McGill University and a MFA from The American Repertory Theatre/ Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

Michele Lawson is an internationally recognized journalist and social justice media producer. Since graduating from Queen’s University with a BAH in Film, she has worked primarily in the charitable sector advocating on behalf of highly vulnerable individuals. As an MA student, she is interested in the ethics of representation and consent as it pertains to engaging those with lived experience in social justice media projects and programs. Her current focus includes building a case for supporting social change to help abandoned children in Muskoka by employing community-based participatory research (CBPR).

Michelle Bunton is the Financial Assistant for the Department of Film and Media at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. They are also the Project and Financial Assistant for the Vulnerable Media Lab, and an Instructor at Ayatana's Biophilium: Science School for Artists. Michelle is a transdisciplinary artist and curator currently residing as an uninvited guest in Katarokwi-Kingston. 

Mikhel Proulx is the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) Postdoctoral Fellow in the Vulnerable Media Lab. Mikhel is a historian of contemporary Canadian art and digital culture. He recently defended his doctoral dissertation—a study of network-based art by Canadian women—which was awarded the 2022 Leonardo Journal top thesis prize. His research considers network culture from queer-feminist and settler-colonial perspectives, and has been recently presented at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute; the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York; Goldsmith’s College, London; Yale University; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. In recent projects, he has collaborated with the artists Margaret Dragu, Skawennati, Anna Boghiguian, Vera Frenkel, Anna Banana, and Rita McKeough. His forthcoming book—part of the Queer Films Classics series—considers how Bob Fosse’s 1972 Cabaret represents Queer sexualities of Weimar Berlin. 

Miranda Ramnares is an aspiring artist, writer and graphic designer from Toronto, ON. Her research interests include post-colonial theory, feminist film theory, and contemporary art; with a focus on how these topics interact with themes of representation, colonial legacy, and identity politics. Her work in arts administration is focused on promoting diversity and advocating for marginalized and racialized peoples. She previously served as the Vice-President of the Board of Directors at Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, and is a recent graduate of Queen’s University, completing a BAH in Art History with a minor in Film & Media.

Naomi Jaye is an artist, filmmaker, educator and PhD candidate in the Screen Cultures and Curatorial studies program at Queens University. Naomi's main research interest lies in research-creation, through which she explores the architecture of installation and immersive experiences. Naomi holds a MFA from York University and is a lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Naomi Okabe is a filmmaker, writer, and MA student in the Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies program. Naomi’s films have premiered at festivals such as Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Her current research explores space exploration, motherhood, and caring futures through speculative fiction, film, and media art. Naomi also co-runs Séance Centre, a record label and publisher.

Nasrin Himada is a Palestinian writer and curator currently based in Kingston, on Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory. Their writing on contemporary art has appeared in many national contemporary art publications, including Canadian Art, C Magazine, MICE, and Fuse. They have collaborated with film festivals and art institutions in Canada and the US, among them the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Trinity Square Video, Toronto; Fondation PHI pour l’art contemporain, Montreal; Mercer Union, Toronto, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montreal; and the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal. Dr. Himada’s recent project For Many Returns typifies their current curatorial interests. The series is designed to explore the possibilities of art writing as a relational act. Since its debut at Dazibao in Montréal, it has toured across Canada, the US and Europe. From 2019–21, Nasrin held the position of curator at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, in Winnipeg on Treaty One Territory.