Keywords
Fields of Research (FoR)
Screen and media culture, Cinema studies, Photography, video and lens-based practiceSEO tags
Biography
Dr George Kouvaros is Professor of Film Studies in the School of the Arts and Media. Located at the intersection of film and media studies, Professor Kouvaros’ writings can be divided into two inter-related bodies of work. The first examines how the interactions between different media influenced the nature of artistic experimentation in the postwar period; the second and most recent body of work deals with the relationship between...view more
Dr George Kouvaros is Professor of Film Studies in the School of the Arts and Media. Located at the intersection of film and media studies, Professor Kouvaros’ writings can be divided into two inter-related bodies of work. The first examines how the interactions between different media influenced the nature of artistic experimentation in the postwar period; the second and most recent body of work deals with the relationship between photographic media and migration. The findings drawn from this work have been disseminated in five sole-authored monographs published by distinguished local and international publishers–University of Minnesota Press, University of Illinois Press and University of Western Australia Press–numerous refereed articles in leading journals such as New German Critique, Screen, Paragraph, Textual Practice and Screening the Past, as well as book chapters, review articles and interviews with leading international filmmakers.
My Grants
2021-2024: ARC Linkage Grant: ‘Remembering Sydney's Post-War Greek Neighbourhoods: 1949-1972,’ ($208,879) Joint CI. LP200200719
2016: UNSW Goldstar Award: ‘Reflections on the Journey in Greek Australian Film and Photography’ ($30,000) Sole CI.
2010-2014: ARC Discovery Grant: ‘Robert Frank: Experimentation Across Film and Photography in Postwar America.’ ($160,000) Sole CI. DP1095077
2005-2008: ARC Discovery Grant : ‘The Misfits and the Iconography of Postwar American Acting.’ ($118,000) Sole CI. DP0558729
2005: Faculty Research Grant: The Films of Paul Schrader: Production, Distribution and Exhibition Contexts. ($10,000)
2004: Faculty Research Committee Publishing Subvention: Where Does it Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). ($1000)
2001: University Research Support Program Grant: ‘The interactions between theatrical, cinematic and television productions in the career of John Cassavetes’. ($9000)
1999: Humanities Research Program Publication Subvention: Falling for You: Essays on Cinema and Performance (Power Publications, 1999). ($800)
1998: Humanities Research Program Conference Support: ‘Cinema and the Senses’, UNSW, September 1998. ($6,000)
1998: Australian Film Commission: Industry and Cultural Development Grant: ‘Cinema and the Senses’, UNSW, September 1998. ($10,000)
My Qualifications
BA Newc. (N.S.W.), PhD Syd.
My Research Activities
ARC Linkage Grant: Remembering Sydney’s Post-War Greek Neighbourhoods: 1949-1972 (LP200200719)
During the height of the post-war immigration boom, Sydney’s metropolitan neighbourhoods played a key role in the reconstitution of migrant identities. Taking a cluster of these neighbourhoods as its case studies, this project will inscribe the memories of Greek-Australians into a history of post-war migration. It will do so through the construction of a corpus of oral histories, photographs, home-movies and memorabilia archived in the State Library of NSW that will reveal how Greek migrants remade themselves as shopkeepers, factory workers, customers, homemakers, parents, spouses, sportspeople and playmates, and how the enactment of these roles bore the trace of not just distinct regional backgrounds, for example, islanders, Cypriots, Macedonians, ‘wave’ (early post-war, mid-1950s-60s, late arrivals) and political background (liberals, communists, royalists), but also a broader mix of social influences.
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Currently supervising
Dr Melanie Robson, PhD, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘The Long Take in Contemporary European Cinema.’
Dr Naadir Juniad, PhD, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘Bengali Political Cinema.’
Dr Louise Malcolm, PhD, Co-Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘The Filmic Bodies of Wong Kar-Wai.’
Lynne Broad, MA, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘Chris Marker: A Stylistic Analysis of His Film and Media Work.’
Dr Effie Rassos, PhD, Co-Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘Everyday Narratives: Reconsidering Filmic Temporality.’
Dan Edwards, MA, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘‘The Death’s Head Beneath’: Film’s Image of History.’
Dr Lisa Bode, PhD, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘From Shadow Citizens to Te on stars: Cultural Responses to the Digital Actor.’
Dr Hamish Ford, PhD, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘Negativity and Time in a Modernist Cinema.’
Dr Merryn Johns, PhD, Primary Supervisor. Thesis Title: ‘Embodied Text: Corporeality and the Contemporary Performance Monologist.’
My Engagement
2020 - present: Film Studies Program Convener
2016 - 2019: Deputy Head of School – Staff Development & Research Convener, School of the Arts and Media
2016 - 2019: Chair, School of the Arts and Media, Research Committee
2016 - 2019: Chair, School of the Arts and Media, Staff Development Committee 2016- present: Committee Member, Faculty Promotions Committee, Level D, ASS
2018 - present: Committee Member, Emeritus Professor Committee, UNSW
2013 - 2015: Committee Member, University Promotions Committee, Level D, UNSW
2014 - 2016: Committee Member, Faculty Promotions Committee, Level E, UNSW Art and Design
2010 - 2012: Research Convener, School of the Arts and Media
2009 - 2010: Committee Member, Faculty Promotions Committee, Level E, School of Medicine
2008: Acting Associate Dean, Research, ASS
2008 - 2009: Director of Postgraduate Research, ASS
2007 - 2009: Performance Review Team, School of the Arts and Media
2008: Committee Member, Faculty Promotions Committee, Level D, Australian School of Business
2007 - 2009: Committee Member, Faculty Promotions Committee, Level D, ASS 2007: Research Coordinator, School of English, Media and Performing Arts
2006 - 2007: Academic Advisor, School of Media, Film and Theatre
2006: BA Coordinator, School of Media, Film and Theatre
2003 - 2005: Co-Chair, Steering Committee, Disestablishment of the Schools of Media and Communications and Theatre, Film and Dance and the creation of the School of Media, Film and Theatre
2003 - 2004: Head of School, School of Theatre, Film and Dance
1999 - 2002: Postgraduate Research Coordinator, School of Theatre, Film and Dance
My Teaching
ARTS1060: Introduction to Film Studies. Co-convener and lecturer
ARTS3066: Documentary and Non-Fiction Cinemas. Convener and lecturer
ARTS3064: Film Styles and Aesthetics. Convener and lecturer
Contact
Publications
ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4299-6390
Research Activities
Robert Frank is one of the twentieth century's most important photographers. His book The Americans revolutionised postwar photography, offering a radically new approach to the nexus of photographic representation and national identity. Its depiction of alienation, deceptively casual compositional style and juxtaposition of images influenced generations of photographers, filmmakers and visual artists both within the US and abroad. Since then, Frank has produced a body of work that spans film, photography and writing. This study uses Frank's seminal cross-media experiments to rewrite the…
The project aims to revise our understanding of how migrants integrated into post-war Australia by examining everyday life histories as mediated through individual and social memory. Taking a cluster of Sydney’s post-war Greek neighbourhoods as its case studies, it will document how Greek migrants formed friendships and enmities, exchanged information and rumours, and, more generally, got on with the process of settlement. It will construct a corpus of oral histories, photographs and primary materials, archived in the State Library of NSW, that will reveal to …
Related Links
The Old Greeks: Photography, Cinema, Migration
Drawing on the events surrounding the arrival of the author’s family in Australia from Cyprus, The Old Greeks traces how film and photography serve as toolkits for making sense of the experience of migration—at the levels of everyday life and creative practice. Combining elements of aut...
Awakening the Eye: Robert Frank's American Cinema
Until now, celebrated photographer Robert Frank’s daring and unconventional work as a filmmaker has not been awarded the critical notice it deserves. In this timely volume, George Kouvaros surveys Frank’s films and videos and places them in the larger context of experimentation in Ameri...
Famous Faces Yet Not Themselves: The Misfits and Icons of Postwar America
Famous Faces Yet Not Themselves offers a multilayered study of the Magnum photographs from the 1961 film The Misfits. By closely scrutinizing the images from one of America’s most haunting and least understood films, George Kouvaros presents a new recognition of the connection between t...
Paul Schrader
As the first full-length study on Paul Schrader's films, this book examines the different styles of his work and the multiple influences on which it draws. A defining feature of Schrader's career is his capacity to engage in a range of collaborations and production contexts wh...
Where Does It Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point
“A good movie,” John Cassavetes has remarked, “will ask you questions you don’t already know the answers to.” And in his films, Cassavetes is as good as his word. Taking up the radical question that Cassavetes’s films consistently pose—specifically, where is the line between actor and c...