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Photograph of Paul Fileri

Paul Fileri Professorial Lecturer Literature

Contact
Paul Fileri
(202) 885-2428
CAS | Literature
Battelle-Tompkins 231
Office Hours (Fall 2024): Battelle-Tompkins 231, Tue. 4-5pm, Wed. 1-2pm ET. In-person or virtual. Schedule these hours via Calendly at www.calendly.com/pfileri. Other office hour times via Zoom are available by appointment.
Degrees
Ph.D., Cinema Studies, New York University

M.A., Cinema Studies, New York University


B.A., English & Comparative Literature with a concentration in French Language & Literature, Columbia University

Languages Spoken
French
Bio
Paul Fileri (he/him/his) is Professorial Lecturer in the Cinema Studies program in the Department of Literature at 17吃瓜在线, in Washington, DC. He received his doctorate in Cinema Studies from New York University in 2016 and his B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He has taught courses at New York University and came to 17吃瓜在线 in 2017 to teach Critical Approach to Cinema (LIT-146), an introduction to the study of cinema and media. He now regularly teaches the 17吃瓜在线 Core course Literature, Film, and Globalization (LIT-250), courses on French Cinemas since 1945 and on international documentary, and the course Documentary: Art and Reality as a first-year seminar in the Complex Problems program. He is currently at work on a book manuscript entitled 鈥淯nsettling Subjects: Documentary and Decolonization in the French Colonial Empire.鈥 His work focuses on documentary and nonfiction screen media, especially the place of audiovisual media in the critical historiography of race, nation, diaspora, and colonial empire. His work begins with documentary media forms and discourse, opening out onto questions across disciplines about power, difference, and the materiality of media forms. His writing has appeared in such journals as Film Quarterly, Film Comment, and Senses of Cinema.


Further research and teaching interests include media, migration and citizenship; media and collectivity in transnational social movements; French and francophone cinema and politics; contemporary and historical francophone African and Black diasporic cinemas; experimental artistic practices in sound and moving image media; the essay film; documentary and nonfiction in emerging digital media projects (online, interactive, database, site-specific installations); the history of filmmaking within state institutions and bureaucratic governance; and the history of moving image archiving and preservation. He has also taught courses on the history of world cinema and history of American cinema (Hollywood and independent) and on activist, radical, and reformist traditions in political cinema (fiction and nonfiction).


Recent publications:


Fileri, Paul. "The Work of Displacement in Colonial Documentary: History, Movement and Collectivity between the Postwar Metropole and Colonial French West Africa," in A Companion to Documentary Film History, ed. Joshua Malitsky (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2021), 27-46.

Book reviews forthcoming in French Studies and in Film Quarterly.

Translation with Adrian Martin of Raymond Bellour, "Going to the Cinema with F茅lix Guattari and Daniel Stern," in The Guattari Effect, eds. 脡ric Alliez and Andrew Goffey (New York: Continuum, 2011), 220-234. Translation of "Le D茅pli des 茅motions," Trafic 43 (Autumn 2002): 93-128.

Translation of Andr茅 Bazin, "Every Film Is a Social Documentary," Film Comment, November/December 2008, 40-41. Translation of "Tout film est un documentaire social," Les Lettres fran莽aises, no. 166, July 5, 1947.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call 17吃瓜在线 Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • LIT-146 Critical Appr to Cinema

  • LIT-146 Critical Appr to Cinema

  • LIT-346 Topics in Film: Documentary Film and Media

Partnerships & Affiliations


  • Member


  • Co-Chair

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

Paul Fileri. "The Work of Displacement in Colonial Documentary: History, Movement and Collectivity between the Postwar Metropole and Colonial French West Africa,"聽in聽A Companion to Documentary Film History, ed. Joshua Malitsky (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2021), 27-46.聽