Blandine Joret works as Assistant Professor of Media and Culture in the Media Studies department, where she lectures in Film, TV and Cross-media. Her courses include Philosophy of the Humanities; Film Analysis; an Advanced Topics seminar on Genre and Philosophy; elective courses in Film and Philosophy and on the French New Wave; and an MA research seminar on Immersion in Film Theory. Blandine also supervises BA and MA theses in film and visual culture, and is a tutor for first year students.

News & ongoing projects

* New update: My book, Studying Film with André Bazin, is reviewed in the latest issue (June 2021) of History of the Humanities (Vol. 6, No.1): "In Bazin’s view, film had to be actively screened in the circuit of film clubs. As a critic, he felt obliged to make viewers rethink film again and again. Joret did the same for Bazin’s oeuvre. Studying Film with André Bazin is first and foremost a response to lazy readings of the Bazinian text and a powerful plea for actively interpreting it anew."

Another review of my book is accessible here (Society for French Historical Studies, H-review Volume 20, November 2020): "The analyses that emerge move freely and imaginatively across their subjects, integrating analyses of Bazin’s own writing, in-depth analyses of contemporary films, and a wide range of intellectual discourses, from existentialist philosophy to calculus to physics".

Blandine is currently developing an inclusive student film club implemented in the BA Media and Culture curriculum (2020-2021), and for which she received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship (NRO Educational Innovation award); read more about the film club here and here.

Her first book, Studying Film with André Bazin, is out with Amsterdam University Press (2019): order it on the publisher's website or read on this OpenAccess platform.

Biography

Dr. Blandine Joret is Assistant Professor of Media and Culture at the Media Studies department at the University of Amsterdam, and Comenius fellow at The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research. She received her PhD in Media Studies at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (University of Amsterdam, cum laude). Her dissertation is an analysis of post-war French film and cultural criticism, which she interprets as an alternative to commonplace academic methods. She holds a bachelor degree (BSc) in Communication Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven (2008) and a cum laude master degree (MA) at the University of Amsterdam (2009). During the Spring semester 2013, Blandine was also visiting scholar at Yale University. Her current research looks at the intersection of film and education with an emphasis on post-literate, audio-visual means of communication.

Research interests

Blandine's research interests are in immersive storytelling and sensemaking (VR and 3D), popular education and film criticism, film communities, 21st century post-literacy, ecopedagogy, media and migration, world cinema.

Invited lectures

1. "Perspectief op Virtual Reality." Kings of Infinite Space: Een avond voor kunstenaars, filmmakers, dichters en VR-nauten. EYE filmmuseum Amsterdam, in samenwerking met het Nederlands Filmfonds & het Mondriaan Fonds, April 2018
2. "On Le Corbusier's Poème éléctronique.” EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam. Collectiedag, May 2017
3. “Can you ‘ear me? Bazin et Deligny au Travail.” Encontro Internacional Fernand Deligny: com, em torno e a partir das tentativas [International Fernand Deligny Encounter: through, around and starting from his tentatives]. Pontifíci Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro, August 2016
4. “Film Language: A Matter of Form.” LUCAS, Center for the Arts in Society, Leiden University, February 2016
5. “A More Realist Perspective on 3D.” Research School for Media Studies (RMES) Trending Topics Research Seminar. Utrecht University, February 2016
6. “Le Monde à son image: le cinéma et le mythe d’Icare.” Traverser Bazin. Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre, February 2014
7. “Existentialism and the New Avant-Garde.” Participation roundtable discussion “Film Culture in Post-War France.” Hot Cinema in the Cold War. Yale University, Whitney Humanities Center. New Haven, April 2013

Conference talks

1. “From Sound to VR: A Changing Paradigm.” Panel: Digital media in transition: platforms, genres and institutions, NECS Conference: Transitions – Moving Images and Bodies. University of Palermo, online event, June 2021.
2. "A. Bazin's Pedagogy in VR: Between a Rock (montage) and a Hard Place (semiotics)." Panel: Bazin's New Century (with Dudley Andrew, Angela Dalle Vacche & Feroz Hassan), Society for Cinema and Media Studies | Toronto, March 2018
3. “From ‘showing’ to ‘signifying’: Stereoscopy and Intellectual Depth.” The Real of Reality: International Conference on Film and Philosophy, ZKM | Center for Art and Media. Karlsruhe, November 2016
4. “‘The Brain Is Needed’: On the Imaginary Image of 3D.” Patterns, Narratives, Rhythms in Neuroscience and the Humanities. University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam, March 2016
5. “The World in its Own Image: Cinema and the Myth of Icarus.” International Conference Philosophy and Film: Thinking Reality and Film through Time. Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, University of Lisbon, Goethe Institut Lisbon. Lisbon, May 2014
6. “Mythology as Methodology: Film Criticism and Talking Cinema.” Film Philosophy Conference: Beyond Film. University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam, July 2013
7. “‘Because, after all, we believe in memory…:’ André Bazin's Retrospective film Criticism and Chaplin's Backwards Kick.” NECS Conference: Time Networks: Screen, Media and Memory. University of Lisbon and University of Coimbra. Lisbon, June 2012
8. “Cinema Not Yet Invented.” Beyond Film Studies: Film Studies as Media Epistemology. Université  de Lausanne. Lausanne, November 2011
9. “Walking Through Memory: The Lisbon Story.” I Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture: Performaticity - Urban Performances and the Performative City. The Catholic University of Portugal. Lisbon, June - July 2011
10.  “Vertiginous Cinema.” ASCA International Workshop Practicing Theory, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. Amsterdam, March 2011
11. “Limitless Cinema: On Global Mediations of Local perceptions.” Cinema and Contemporary Art III. Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III/INHA (Institut national dʼhistoire de lʼart). Paris, July 2010
12.  “Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Framing.” Cinema and Contemporary Art II. Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III/INHA (Institut national dʼhistoire de lʼart). Paris, July 2009