Keynote Presentations
2019
“Feral Hospitality: Making Space for Multispecies Co-Existence,” presented at 307 Open Sidewalk #4 Winter Warmer. Sidewalk Labs, Toronto, ON, March 2, 2019
Invited Talks
2021
“Architectures of Hospitality,” Online Panel and Q & A, invited by PUBLIC. Art. Culture. Ideas. Co-hosted by Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design and the University of Florida School of Architecture, March 9.
2020
“Grizzly Man: The Death and Sacrifice of Timothy Treadwell,” Virtual Lecture, FILM 305: Documentary Film, University of Calgary, November 16.
“Animals and Film,” Virtual Q & A, FM4413: Ecocinema: The Nature of Film, St. Andrew’s University, October 9.
2018
“Authorship, Style, and the Question of the ‘Lynchian'” Lecture, FILM 403: The Cinema of David Lynch, University of Calgary, October 31.
2017
“The Mass Production of Non-Human Senses: Accidental Animal Videos as Creaturely Vernacular Modernism,” invited by the Toronto Film and Media Seminar, TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto, ON, January 13.
2013
“Animals and Motion: An Archaeology of a Human Preoccupation,” invited by Instructor Heather Gibb for COMS 200: History of Communication, at McGill University, May 9.
2012
“Kinetic Longings: The Tropes of Vitality and Freedom in the Culture of Mobile Media,” Invited by the Visible City: Working Papers Series, Free Times Café, Toronto, ON, March 28.
2007
“The Slasher Film: A Misunderstood Subgenre of Horror” invited by Instructor Mike Baker for FMST 200: Introduction to Film Studies, Concordia University, Feb 8.
“Mike Figgis’ Time Code, the Cell Phone and Digital Cinema” invited by Instructor Mike Baker at FMST 200: Introduction to Film Studies, Concordia University, Apr 5.
Conferences
2018
“Feral Filmmaking: Accidental Animal Videos as Multispecies Ethnographies.” To be presented at Feral: A Nearly Carbon Neutral Conference, Co-hosted by Massey University Political Ecology Research Centre and Wageningen University Centre for Space, Place, and Society, Online, November.
“Feral Hospitality: Making Space for Multispecies Co-Existence in Kedi.” Presented at Thinking Space, The Spiral Film and Philosophy Conference, Toronto Media Arts Centre, Toronto, ON, May 11.
2017
“The Feathers at the Edge of the Frame: Contemplating Avian Involvement in the Development of the Aerial View.” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, May 27.
“A Monkey Steals a GoPro and Makes a Movie: A Case for the Cultural Significance of Accidental Animal Videos.” Presented at Canadian Communication Association’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Jun 1.
“Wildlife Imagery, Interrupted: Aesthetics of Resilience in Accidental Animal Videos.” Presented at the John Douglas Taylor Conference: Resilience in a Multispecies World. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Apr 22.
2016
“Animals Meet Drones, Aesthetics Meet Ethics: On Ubiquitous Cameras, Non-Human Image Making, and Human Responsibility” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, May 30.
“The Carrier Pigeon: Exploring the Feathered Edges of the Modern Communication Network” Presented at the Canadian Communication Association’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, May 30.
“An Octopus Steals a Camera and Makes a Movie: Revisiting Cinema’s Non-Anthropocentric Ontology With Accidental Animal Videos” Presented at The Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, Mar 30.
2014
“Glimmers of Strange Worlds: André Bazin and the Ontology of Accidental Animal Videos” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, May 29.
2013
“Tablets of Testimony: How “Apps for Apes” Illuminates the Affective Dimension of Communication” Presented at the Apps and Affect Conference at Museum London, London, ON, Oct 19.
“Faster, Hobbit! Thrill, Thrill!: Revisiting the Question of Cinema at 48 Frames per Second” Co-Presented with Sanja Obradovic at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Victoria, BC, Jun 6.
“A Seagull Stole My Camera: Non-Human Mobilities and Capturing the Animal Moment” Presented at the 4th International Conference of the Pan-American Mobilities Network, Differential Mobilities: Movement and Mediation in Networked Societies, at Concordia University, Montreal, QC, May 10.
2012
“The Marvels of Motion: An Examination of The Tropes of Animality and Liveliness in Mobile Phone Culture” Presented at the Canadian Communication Association’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Wilfrid Laurier University & Waterloo University, Waterloo, ON, May 31.
“ ‘A Horror of Great Darkness All Around’: The Mobile Phone & Auditory Immersion in Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried’” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Wilfrid Laurier University & Waterloo University, Waterloo, ON, Jun 21.
2011
“The Myth of Total Cinema Revisited: Theorizing Mobile Technology With a Bazinian Lens” Presented at the International Colloquium of the Permanent Seminar on the History of Film Theory: The Impact of Technological Innovations on the History of and Historiography of Cinema, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Nov 1.
2010
“Between the Two Deaths: Vampires and The Lure of the Lacanian Real in the Twilight Franchise” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Conference, at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Jun 2.
“Dirty Love: The Gross-Out Comedy Goes Female” Presented at Undressing the Bawdy: An Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities hosted by the English Graduate Students’ Association, York University, Toronto, ON, May 14.
2009
“Elvis and Marilyn on the Yellow Brick Road: The Significance of the Phantasmagoria of Pop Culture in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart” Presented at the Film Studies of Canada’s Annual Conference, at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON May 30.
2007
“Murderous, Mobile, Mutable: Articulating the American Stalker Film in the Cellular Age” Presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Annual Graduate Colloquium, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Feb 18.
Podcasts
2017
“Unwrapping The Return.”The Lodgers: A Twin Peaks Podcast, episode 30, Sordid Cinema Podcast Network, Dec. 17.
“Me, a Tulpa?” The Lodgers: A Twin Peaks Podcast, episode 26, Sordid Cinema Podcast Network, Aug. 20.
“Attack of the Plant Vaginas.” The Lodgers: A Twin Peaks Podcast, episode 7, Sordid Cinema Podcast Network, Apr. 4.
Sara Swain, Ph.D. 