Current PhD students and their projects

April 6, 2010 at 12:02 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: current projects

Currently there are several students who are conducting PhD research in relation to moving image at Utrecht University.

Dafna Ruppin, started May 2010

Images of the ‘Asian Other’ Circulating in the Netherlands in Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century Film and Popular Media

As a graduate of a BA in Communications and English Literature followed by an MA in Cultural Studies, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I have always focused my studies on photography, film and literature within the context of colonial history and postcolonial theory. My MA thesis dealt with French nostalgic and traumatic memories of colonizer-colonized relations, as represented in Claire Denis’ Chocolat (1988) and Brigitte Roüan’s Outremer (1990). Throughout my studies and since graduating, I have worked as a translator, editor, journalist and literary critic.

I first came to Amsterdam in 2006/7, as part of an exchange program with the University of Amsterdam, but I moved there more permanently in January 2009. Since then I have been involved in various cultural projects in Amsterdam, such as SMART Project Space’s cinema program, Filmisreal: Festival for New Israeli Cinema, and Foam Magazine.

In May 2010 I started working as a PhD candidate at the OGC, along with my colleague Sarah Dellmann and under the guidance of Prof. Frank Kessler, on the research project “The Nation and Its Other: The Emergence of Modern Popular Imagery and Representations”. My contribution to the project, under the working title Images of the ‘Asian Other’ Circulating in the Netherlands in Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century Film and Popular Media, will examine the representations of the Asian Other in various types of texts (films, travelogues, tourist guides, encyclopedias, etc.) circulating in the Netherlands in connection with discourses on the colonies in the Dutch East Indies. I will be looking into the way in which conflicts between Asians and European powers – specifically the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War – bring forth a variety of positive and negative representations of the Asian Other, from exotic colonial subject to potential insurgent, from submissive servant to “yellow danger.” I will also be considering the processes of circulation, presentation and performance of the different forms of “Asian-ness,” as well as the ways in which they are received, including the intricate issues of cultural ownership.

Sarah Dellmann, started May 2010

Project: The Nation and Its Other: The Emergence of Modern Popular Imagery and Representations

Before moving to Utrecht, I studied Theatre, Film and Media Sciences, Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany and Paris VIII, France. Besides my passion for the material and watching projected film, I specialized in Early Cinema and western feminist film critique. My Masters thesis investigated the impact of Early Cinema in Tod Browning’s films of the 1920s. After graduating in 2006, I worked for several projects in the field of film history, film programming, education and research for the German Film Institute, the Kinothek Asta Nielsen, the Norbert Wollheim Commission of the University of Frankfurt/Main and for the Fritz Bauer Institute.

While my colleague Dafna Ruppin investigates images of the ‘Asian Other’, I will take a complementary look at images of the Netherlands and ‘the Dutch’ circulating in popular visual mass-media at the time of Early Cinema (c. 1890-1914). I will investigate how the Netherlands got depicted within this new media that allowed broad dissemination of photographic images.

Rather than searching for a ‘real Dutch identity’ that was represented right or wrong, I wish to investigate which images now associated with the Netherlands or ‘the Dutch’ came into circulation – and how we came to understand that we are dealing with something Dutch.

Claire Dupré la Tour, started 15 July 2009

Intertitle and Narrative Film

Since the 15th of July 2009, I am working within the OGC PhD International programme, in the Media Studies field, to complete my doctoral dissertation on Intertitle and Narrative Film, under the direction of Professor Frank Kessler (Utrecht University) with the co-direction of Professor Roger Odin (Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle).

Traditionally, film history and film theory have rarely been concerned by the intertitle, while its editing with moving photographic images raises questions: during the silent film period, questions of its opportunity, utility, place and form, such questions silent films restoration and valorization are confronted to. Classical film historians have generally neglected this device, considered as a pale attempt to express the dialogues, palliating the absence of synchronized sound. Thus it has been ideologically largely assumed that the intertitle was not a filmic element, even by film theory whose analyses are though largely based on literature and linguistic models. However, the growing presence of the intertitle during the 1910s proves it to be not so external to the film. The examination of its systematization in this decade enlightens its paper in the construction of the feature-length film, the construction of the character, and enlightens hypothesis on relations between film and language.

The aim of my work is to point out the uses of the intertitle, from the first years of fairground attraction to the feature-length film of the 1910s, mainly in American film, and to explore theory questions that can explain this use:

Observation of the way the intertitle introduces writing and language in a new context, the film

Marking of its changes and contribution to the evolution of the film – specially, construction of the continuity, lengthening and narrative autonomy, discursive and transformation of receptiveness, construction of character

Analysis of the deep linguistic process of the dialogue intertitle and development of theory points updated by this analysis

Analysis of the process of intertitle writing: the intertitles of Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1916) in four versions of the film. For this last point, I carried out archival research at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Library of Congress, Washington; the UCLA Film Archive and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles; and La Cinémathèque française, Paris.

I have authored several articles and conferences on the subject and also directed the international colloquium “Intertitle and Film. History, Theory, Restoration”, at the Cinémathèque française in 1999.

I studied Modern Literature at Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle University, where I earned an M. A. with a thesis on The Use of Written Text in Photo-Novels, and the Third Cycle Degree Diploma: Diplôme d’études approfondies (DEA) in the field of Cinema and Audiovisual, with a thesis on Organization and Perception of Speech in Carl’s Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (France, 1928). I have been a member of the weekly seminar directed by Christian Metz at the EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), and participating in the seminar directed by Roger Odin (Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle). I began my research under the direction of Michel Colin (Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle) and Christian Metz. I am a co-editor of the journal Iris, a member of Domitor – the International Association Dedicated to the Study of Early Cinema – and formerly elected member in its Executive Board. I have contributed to the International Pordenone Silent Film Festival Le Giornate del cinema muto’s Griffith Project in 2004-2005. In France, I am a member of the French Association for Research on Cinema history and of the French Association of Professors and Researchers in Cinema and AudioVisual. I have co-edited, among other collective works, Le Cinéma au tournant du siècle / Cinema at the Turn of the Century (1999), with André Gaudreault and Roberta Pearson. Occasionally I have lectured in communication and film within French Universities programs and I did ad hoc consulting for film restorations and article evaluations. While doing my researches and activities in cinema studies, I have been teaching French Literature and Audiovisual in a High School. And then, from 1990, I have been the executive manager of the Marketing and Strategy Research Center of Paris Dauphine University.

I live in Meudon, a little town ten minutes from Paris.

Quijun (Cynthia) Han, started 1 July 2009

The Evolution of Chinese Images in American Fiction Films

I was born in Changzhou, a city close to Shanghai. As my parents’ only child, I was raised in a happy family. Two months before I was born, my father spent an hour every day to think of my name. Qijun is who I am, so named because my parents consider me as their most adorable treasure. Literally, it means jade.

Thanks to the reform and opening-up policy in 1979, the Chinese have been experiencing rapid socioeconomic changes. These not only affected the family structure, but also people’s perception of conventional culture and family values. Therefore, traditional Confucian values and revolutionary Maoism have been replaced by economic and political liberation. Many elements of traditional China are interwoven with modern arrangements. I am a lucky dog in a sense, as I am the first generation in Mainland China to benefit from these changes.

Determined by my life experiences and adventure spirit, I am always eager to travel around and to learn new stuff. I keep an open mind about everything, no matter how improbable it seems. After I finished my bachelor study in Nanjing University in China, I made up my decision to come to the Netherlands to start a new kind of life. Only after I had come here, I began to realize how many Chinese traits I have. I should admit that before I came here I never really thought too much about my nationality. Occasionally people start a conversation with the question “Which country are you from?” It is always fun to meet new people, but meanwhile it is uncomfortable to know that I am labeled as a communist by some of them. What people know is limited by their sources of information, which results in their relying on stereotypes. Though race and nationality have inevitably shaped my identity and personal values, I do believe many of my qualities are formed beyond race and nationality.

Throughout my master’s study, I have been working intensively under the supervision of Prof. Rob Kroes on the history of Chinese immigrants in the United States. Besides, I have been reading books concerning ethnicity and cultural identity. My master’s thesis is about The Evolution of Chinese Images in American Fiction Films. Since the birth of film, the Chinese and Chinese-Americans have been represented frequently on screen. Hollywood has consistently produced Chinese characters to present to the American public. However, Chinese and Chinese-Americans have been and continue to be victims of cultural racism. My argument focused on the history of resistance to stereotypes by the Chinese community in the United States. I sketched the evolution of Chinese cinematic representations by tracing this history.

My PhD research will be an elaboration or in-depth extension of the thesis. The purpose of my research is to consider the nature and formulation of Chinese-American identity by looking at their cinematic representations created by film directors from both Hollywood and the Chinese-American community.

Junting Zhang, started January 2010

Chinese Traditional Culture in Chinese Commercial Films

I arrived to the Netherlands from China and started my study in the OGC Research Institute here in January under the supervision of Prof. Dr. F. E. Kessler and direction of José van Aelst. My study concerns the Chinese commercial films, focusing on the representation of Chinese traditional culture in this field, which I hope to benefit the protection and heritage of Chinese traditional culture in the field of mass culture industry.

I got my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Xiamen University of China, where I majored in journalism in the field of media management and event planning. So I have a little transfer here, which is not so easy especially at the beginning, though the subject is related to mass media and communication. However, I am lucky to have a good start in OGC and Utrecht University. I love the open-minded academic atmosphere, the quiet and beautiful landscape, and especially the nice people here.

Klaas de Zwaan

Beelden voor de Toekomst (Images for the Future)

Since his graduation in film studies at Utrecht University in 2004, Klaas de Zwaan (1977) has been working as a junior-lecturer/researcher at the Departement of Media and Culture, teaching in various areas such as film history, philosophy of science and archive studies in both BA and MA programs. His research interests include film history and heritage studies, with a particular focus on early non-fiction, propaganda, historical reception and archival theory. Previous publications include a co-authored book on the local cinema history of Utrecht, Sensationeele Voorstellingen en Passend vermaak (2009).
His PhD project explores the question how foreign propaganda films shown in Dutch cinemas during the First World War were interpreted within the ideological framework of nationalism by analyzing how these images were consumed in different Dutch exhibitional contexts and how their propaganda efforts were acknowledged or rejected as being part of a projected ‘Dutchness’. Arguing these films could be equally considered part of a national heritage, my aim is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of discourses of nationalism within early cinema cultures, as well as issues involving the demarcation and valorization of national film legacies. Given the ambitious project Beelden voor de Toekomst (Images for the Future), in which a consortium of audiovisual archives cooperate in preserving and presenting their collections online, the question which material to include and how to contextualize it is of growing importance. This thesis will make an substantial contribution to these efforts. 


Fransje de Jong, started 2004

Jewish Entrepreneurs in the Dutch Film Business Before 1940

After graduating in film studies at Utrecht University and a short career as a documentalist at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, I started my PhD-project in 2004 under the supervision of Professor Dr. Bert Hogenkamp and Dr. Judith Thissen.

My research concerns the remarkable presence of Jews in the Dutch film business before the outbreak of the Second World War. Especially during the interwar years there was a considerable quantitative overrepresentation of Jewish entrepreneurs in the film sector in the Netherlands compared to their total share in the population. Besides, most of the key positions between 1918 and 1940 were occupied by Jewish cinema owners and film distributors, with Abraham Tuschinski and Loet Cohen Barnstijn in front. On the institutional level Jewish entrepreneurs were key players within the board of directors and other organizing committees of the Dutch Cinema League, the most important professional organization of the Dutch film business, which was presided by the Jewish cinema owner David Hamburger Jr for almost twenty years.

All of this seems to be more than a coincidence, especially considering the fact that Jews played also a mayor role in the film industry in various other European countries as well as in Hollywood. The phenomenon raises two simple questions with, however, more complicated answers: in the first place, how can we explain this concentration of such a small minority in the film business in the Netherlands during this era? Secondly, did it matter at all that they were Jewish and to whom? Did it affect entrepreneurship or the film industry itself in any significant way? The central aim of my doctoral dissertation is to point out in what ways and to what extent Jewish identity or the ethno-cultural minority position in Dutch society attached to it, affected the economic activities and entrepreneurial strategies of the Jewish entrepreneurs themselves.

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