Corinn Columpar

Associate Professor
Innis College, IN-323E, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
416-946-0213

Biography

As a researcher, Corinn Columpar’s areas of specialization include the filmmaking practices and textual politics of various counter-cinematic traditions (especially feminist, Aboriginal, and “independent”) as well as, more generally, film theory, embodiment and representation, and collaborative practice. Among her publications are Unsettling Sights: The Fourth World on Film (2010), a monograph that examines the construction of Aboriginality in contemporary cinema from Canada, the US, New Zealand, and Australia; There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond (2009), a co-edited anthology dedicated to the flows and exchanges that characterize feminist cultural production; and Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor (2022), a co-edited anthology that examines the role parenting, as a theme and practice, plays in film and media cultures. Professor Columpar regularly teaches courses related to her areas of specialization, such as Feminist Approaches to Cinema, American Independent Film, Corporeality and Cinema, and Stardom, Acting, Performance, as well as certain core courses in Cinema Studies, including CIN105Y - Introduction to Film Study.

Books

Unsettling Sights: The Fourth World on Film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.

Books Edited

Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor. Co-edited with So Mayer. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022.

There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond. Co-edited with So Mayer. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009.

Articles in Academic Journals

“A Permeable Practice: Shortbus and the Politics of Cinematic Collaboration.”  Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 31: 1 91 (April 2016): 5-25. 

“‘Taking Care of Her Green Stone Wall’: The Experience of Space in Once Were Warriors.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 24:5 (October 2007): 463-474. 

“Re-Membering the Time-Travel Film: From La Jetée to Primer.” Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media 9 (2006). 

“The Gaze as Theoretical Touchstone: The Intersection of Film Studies, Feminist Theory, and Postcolonial Theory.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 30:1-2 (Spring/Summer 2002): 25-44. 

Marnie: A Site/Sight for the Convergence of Gazes.” Hitchcock Annual (1999-2000): 51-73.

Articles in Books

“Mobilizing Acts in Ten Canoes.” In First Takes, Fourth World: Global Indigenous Cinema, edited by Kerstin Knopf, Wendy Pearson, and Ernie Blackmore. Forthcoming.

With So Mayer. “Introduction.” In Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor, edited by So Mayer and Corinn Columpar, 1-16. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022.

“Confessions of an Aca-Fan-Mom: Jane the Virgin, Motherhood, and Community.” In Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor, edited by So Mayer and Corinn Columpar, 191-207. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022.

Charlie’s Country, Gulpilil’s Body.” In A Companion to Australian Cinema, ed. Felicity Collins, Jane Landman, and Susan Bye, 54-67. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

“The Feminist Politics of Collaboration in Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture.” In Indie Women Reframed: Women and the Contemporary American Independent Cinema, edited by Michele Schreiber, Linda Badley, and Claire Perkins, 276-287. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

“A Cinema of Conviviality: Peter Lawrence’s Jindabyne (2006).” In Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance, edited by Rebecca Hightower-Weaver and Peter Hulme, 154-170. New York: Routledge, 2014.

“A Postfeminist Primer: Renee Zellweger, Hilary Swank, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.” In Shining in the Shadows: Movie Stars of the 2000s, edited by Murray Pomerance and Adrienne McLean, 128-146. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011.

With So Mayer. “Introduction.” In There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond, edited by Corinn Columpar and So Mayer, 1-15. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009.

“At the Limits of Visual Representation: Tracey Moffatt’s Still and Moving Images.” In There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond, edited by Corinn Columpar and So Mayer, 146-159. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009.

“Colonialism/Postcolonialism” and “Tracey Moffatt.” In Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, 325-331. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2006.

“The Dancing Body: Sally Potter as Feminist Auteure.” In Women Filmmakers: Refocusing, edited by Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis, and Valerie Raoul, 108-116. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002.

“‘Til Death Do Us Part: Identity and Friendship in Heavenly Creatures.” In Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood, edited by Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance, 323-342. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002.

Other Publications

With So Mayer. Themed Playlist: Mothers of Invention.  Playlist Initiative, Centre for Screen Cultures (May 2022).

“Teaching Touch of Evil.”  The Cine-Files 9 (Fall 2015). 

“‘It can be like grace’: Enlightened Political Possibility.”  Cléo: A Journal of Film and Feminism 3:3 (Fall 2015). 

Education

PhD, Emory University
MA, Emory University
BA, Yale University

Publications

Administrative Service

Director, Cinema Studies Institute, 2014-2019
Graduate Coordinator, Cinema Studies Institute, 2010-2012, 2020-2022
Undergraduate Coordinator, Cinema Studies Institute, 2013-2014