Call for Applicants | Queen's Film and Media

Now accepting applications for an MA or PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies (SCCS) at Queen’s University starting Fall 2025

Application deadline: 31 January 2025

Queen’s Department of Film and Media is pleased to invite applications to its Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies (SCCS) graduate program. Launched in the Fall of 2019, in partnership with Agnes Etherington Art Centre (the AGNES), the program offers one-year MA or four-year PhD degrees. The program’s openness to research-creation methodologies makes it perfect for practicing curators and artists who want to expand their horizons in a multidisciplinary scholarly environment. Students are fully funded through a combination of grants, teaching, and research opportunities. The program also offers access to exhibition and screening facilities both in-house and through partnerships with galleries, film festivals and artist-run centers from all over the world. Extra support for student projects is available through department seed funding and Queen’s Internal awards.

Housed in the state-of-the-art Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, the MA and PhD in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies are unique because of their linkage to adjacent disciplines: film and media studies and, more generally, the study of screen cultures, film and media production, and curatorial studies and practice. These multidisciplinary programs provide students with a wide range of educational and professional opportunities, including academia, arts management, programming, media production (from mainstream media to artistic and activist production), and curating.

The program’s three strongly interconnected areas of focus—studies, production and curatorial practice—are designed to stimulate inventive dialogue in ways that ensure their respective influence, and in ways that open exciting points of access to multiple disciplinary formations. This collaborative tripartite structure is not offered in any other film, media, cinema, art or communication MA or PhD program in Ontario.

Faculty in the program bring together expertise in critical theory, visual and media arts, performance, mixed reality, experimental film, and installation. A rich program of visiting scholars, filmmakers, artists, and curators provide opportunities for practice-based learning, allowing students to integrate new knowledge gained from other graduate-level coursework and to implement newly acquired skills in and beyond the gallery, festival and museum.

Research Areas

Archives, Curation, and Remediation
Curatorial Studies
Environmental film and media
Experimental Media
Feminist, Critical Race, Indigenous and LGBTQ2+ Screen Cultures
Film, Media and Performance Studies
Film, Media and Screen Cultures
Historical and Contemporary Film and Media
Moving Image Production (Narrative, Documentary, Experimental, Animation, Open Media)
National Cinemas, Cultural Institutions and Curatorial Events

We only accept students when we have faculty who are specialists and can supervise the project, so please make sure there is an appropriate supervisor on staff. Applicants should develop a short description of their proposed research and reach out to potential supervisors to gauge their interest/supervisory capacity and include that information in their application. Please review our Research Areas and How to Apply webpages for further information and, to ensure our program is the right fit for you, visit our other webpages to learn more about the MA Program or the PhD Program. You can also fill out our Pre-application Survey. for feedback on your potential application.

Sign up for one of our virtual information sessions:

Oct 9, 2024 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Nov 20, 2024 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Applications can be made until 31 January 2025, via Queen’s application website and portal: https://www.queensu.ca/grad-postdoc/grad-studies/apply

Questions? Contact Gabriel Menotti, Graduate Chair, or Helga Smallwood, Graduate Assistant.