De-marginalising and de-centring film studies in bodies, places and on screens

Abstract

This paper presents a multimodal conversation that engages the personal teaching and learning experiences of the authors, Berenike Jung (in London when the conversation started) and Derilene Marco (in Johannesburg). Critically reflecting and engaging through an audio recording and letters, Jung and Marco ask each other about the processes of doing and performing the labour of decolonising film teaching in their respective courses and from different global locations. Keeping in mind the impositions and complexities of the pandemic, Jung and Marco also reflect upon the ways in which colonial posturing occurs in film studies spaces, such as highly visible international film conferences. In doing so, they reflect on how engagements such as these keep many scholars and their scholarship confined to traditional Eurocentric and North American strategies, methods and endorsements of approval and relevance. The piece is conversational and self-aware in its self-referential tone. It is intended that readers listen to parts of the audio if they please, but that they are not compelled to do so to find meaning.