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In both form and content, Wim Wenders's films create a cinema of wandering, tracing a route of intersections between the modern and postmodern visual landscape. The space of the world, its deserted horizons and populated streets, are a kind of visual architecture through which the mobile vision of the film wanders, just as Wenders's peripatetic characters wander through space and time towards encounters with others. This wandering invites a phenomenological understanding of embodied spectator experience and perception, for as much as Wenders's films are about the representative image, they are also about the dynamic relationship of the embodied spectator to the visible world. A first avenue of inquiry leads through the deserts and cities that shape the visual terrain of Wenders's cinema. These locations are always sites (places) and sights (images) of recuperation that offer critique, analysis, and resistance to the hyperreal and the reductive visual practices of postmodernity. A second route follows the journeys of both Wenders's characters and films. The insistence in existential phenomenology that meaning and intentionality inhere in the body's motility provides a starting point for elucidating the relationship of cinematic technology to embodied vision. The film and the spectator share a way of being in the world, and the wandering vision and audition that shape the journeys of Wenders's films are always expressions of the modern experience of space and time. Finally, this dissertation undertakes a third course, applying naturalized phenomenology to a reading of the encounters of Wenders's wandering subjects. This methodology allows for a clearer understanding of the socially mediated subject, and of the relationship of spectator to film. The dynamic mirroring that constitutes cinematic experience as it occurs neurologically and phenomenologically shapes cinematic encounters. Film is a mirror, but more significantly, the spectator is a mirror. For the spectator, as for Wenders's characters, wandering is a way of engaging the contingencies of the other and confronting the truths and lies behind cinematic illusion. / English

This dissertation examines what I refer to as the politics of multiculturalism and the politics of friendship as represented in five texts: Rudyard Kipling's Kim, E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, Meera Syal's novel Anita and Me, Syal's film adaptation Anita and Me, and Gurinder Chadha's film Bend it Like Beckham. I argue these texts are dialogically engaged with larger political discourses concerning race relations, anticipating or problematizing contemporary multiculturalist debates and practices. I read the theme of interracial friendship, prioritized in all five texts, as a strategic narrative device through which larger political questions of race relations get played out. The colonial novels suggest friendship as a potential antidote to interracial tensions, but show (albeit inadvertently in Kim) how it cannot induce a future egalitarian world if one race rules another. In doing so, these novels anticipate multiculturalist discourses, which celebrate diverse cultures but do nothing to address the political inequalities of racialized peoples. The British-Asian texts already assume the futility of multiculturalist celebrations of cultural diversity as a means for progressive race relations and disrupt ideals of fraternal friendship that overlook cultural difference for the sake of social harmony. Even so, these texts still express the necessity of building connections between diverse peoples. Through various narrative strategies, I argue they promote the notion of political friendship, which supports the enunciation not elision of cultural difference, negotiating rather than avoiding the terrain of uneven, incommensurable differences between peoples and cultures to move toward a more promising future. . / English

Border Perversion: Physical, Bodily and Conceptual Borders and the Multimodal Essay Film is an interdisciplinary and multimodal media dissertation based on extensive research, interviews and field notes. This practice-led research investigates alternative border imaginaries through two multimodal essay films Blazing Worlds and Common Work, and a written thesis that examines the shifting nature of borders — conceptual, political and lived experiences — in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. It developed from the question as to why, in hyper globalized world, are so many borders being built? There were fewer than five border walls globally post World War II, and just 12 border walls at the end of the Cold War. Today, 74 border walls exist across the globe, most of them erected in the past two decades, with at least 16 more planned or in construction at the time of writing. Within all power relations, there is the potential for resistance, especially through changing the meaning and value of terms. In this dissertation, I reactivate the concept of perversion as an erring or straying as a source of subversive and creative potential, to unveil alternative border imaginaries within the distinctive legal terrain of the Svalbard archipelago. Through this exploration, I analyze and contribute to unconventional perspectives of borders. This involves not only navigating the complex legal intricacies of the Svalbard archipelago, but also pushing artistic boundaries to transcend the genre of the essay film. By appropriating perversion, I challenge existing conceptual frameworks but also pioneer an innovative approach to understanding artistic expression, proposing the emergence of a new type of essay film, a multimodal essay film, which continues the essay film’s trajectory of subverting dominant artistic structures. The multimodal essay film provides room to explore the complex issues of borders by blurring the boundaries of materialities and methods. I assert that this transgression reanimates the subversive and augments its heterogeneous form through the introduction of objects. I undertook field research in Svalbard as the Svalbard Treaty provides a compelling case study to illustrate alternative border imaginaries which transcends the traditional domestic-international divide. With its unique governance model, and diverse transnational players, the fluid coexistence among actors in Svalbard challenges the dichotomy between “them” and “us”, revealing a more intricate interplay of belonging. My exploration of how identity and belonging operate in Svalbard, in a context detached from conventional life markers, offers a fresh perspective on the evolving nature of borders. In parallel, this thesis has two multimodal essay film realizations, Blazing Worlds and Common Work, both of which were exhibited in Ireland, and a collection of interviews with artists and scholars exploring multimodal essay film. In addition, a symposium titled ‘Encounters with Boundaries’ was hosted by the Slought in Philadelphia in 2022 which explored issues raised in this dissertation. The central focus of this research is exploring the beyond of the essay film and of conventional border frameworks, fostering space for diverse narratives, practices, and imaginings. Through this exploration, it contributes to the decolonization of knowledge by transcending genre boundaries. / Documentary Arts

Thesis (M.F.A.) / The purpose of this project is to redefine the word "Bollywood" as more than a regional or cultural cinema, focusing instead on the unique style of the films that is often neglected or dismissed by film critics. The aspects explored are the development of Bollywood style from 1995 to the mid 2000s as exhibited by the films Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), and Dhoom (2004), and a subsequent development of a reflexive neo-Bollywood style beginning in the mid-2000s, exhibited by the films Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), Dhoom 2 (2006), and Chennai Express (2013). Close analysis of these films shows an aesthetic of melodrama that applies not only to the narrative of the films but more noticeably and importantly to the filmic style of the narrative and the subsequent themes that emerge. To further illustrate Bollywood as a style, the project analyzes Bollywood’s stylistic influences outside of India, including readings of television shows Smash and Glee, and films Moulin Rouge! (2001), Strictly Ballroom (1992), and Chicago (2002). This project aims to vindicate Bollywood as a complex artistic expression that privileges an emotional reality over a mimetic reality. / 2999-01-01

Pour Marcel Hénaff, anthropologue, les villes sont composées de trois espaces distincts, soit « l’espace privé », « l’espace public » et « l’espace commun ». « L’espace privé » relève de la propriété privé comme par exemple la maison, pour « l’espace public » on parle d’un réseau d’institutions dans lequel se déroule la vie publique et les débats, finalement, « l’espace commun », originalité d’Hénaff, relève des lieux partagés par les habitants comme une rue ou une place publique. En faisant dialoguer ces trois types d’espaces avec la façon dont les films « Les ordres », (Brault, 1974) « Jésus de Montréal », (Arcand, 1989) « Cosmos », (Alleyn et al, 1996) et « La femme de mon frère » (Chokri, 2019) les représentent, ce mémoire analyse la représentation de la métropole québécoise au fil dans ans. À l’issue de cette partie recherche et analyse, le volet création sera constitué de la scénarisation dequatre saynètes visant à représenter la ville de Montréal. / For the anthropologist Marcel Hénaff, cities are composed of three different kinds of spaces. These are described as : the ‘’private space’’, the ‘’public space’’, and the ‘’common space’’. The ‘’private space’’ originates from private property, like someone’s home, for example. The ‘’public space’’ represents the coalition of different institutions where citizenship and debates take place. Finally, the ‘’common space’’ is where inhabitants, as described by Hénaff, share public spaces such as streets. By comparing these three types of spaces and how they are represented and play out in the films ‘’Les ordres’’, (Brault, 1974), ‘’Jésus de Montréal’’, (Arcand, 1989), ‘’Cosmos’’, (Alleyn et al, 1996), ‘’La femme de mon frère’’ (Chokri, 2019), this master’s thesis analyses the representation(s) of Montreal in movies throughout the years. At the end of this research and analysis, the creation section in which four screenplays for short sketches are written to explore and offer different representations of these spaces and of the the city of Montreal.

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