8/10/2019 ApplicantID2873_FnZKlG3kIc_Segw

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Dimitrios Latsis

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

As a teacher who aims to continuously bring my own research to bear on classroom instruction andvice-versa, a constant in my practice is what I would call a dialectical approach to pedagogy that

emphasizes the circulation rather than the mere transmission of ideas. Having benefited from itmyself in the past, I am a strong believer in fostering undergraduate research and engagement withcreative tools which then inform and shape the students understanding of texts and theories.

The first component of this approach stems from my training as a comparatist: I have alwayssought to place cinema and the moving image more generally in the context of other media and artforms. As a result, I always seek to reflect that relational bent in the design of syllabi for my classesand in the form and substance of assignments. Giving students the opportunity to correlateconcepts of film theory, aesthetics and history to their own artistic experiences and backgrounds,regardless of major, and explaining how the goals of the course can be applicable in their studies,careers and lives, tailors my teaching to the individual interests and expectations of the learners Iinteract with. This skill translates directly into my research areas that routinely entail such cross-disciplinary inquiry. I often incorporate show-and-tell sessions of archival material and films in my

classes that place early cinema against the background of turn-of-the-century popular amusements.My students have, in turn, repeatedly come up with creative projects, like a collaborative video essayon Buster Keatons physical comedy or a student-curated week of formal analysis of vintage TV ads,projects that implement in action notions like performance and visual authorship that canotherwise sound too abstract.

The other component of my conception of teaching and the one that truly posits instructionas an ongoing interactive endeavor is its Socratic orientation. While maintaining clarity in thedistinctive roles within the teacher-student dynamic, I have always encouraged students to assumethe role of collaborators, actively shaping their learning experience. Instead of lecturing on theimportance of media archives, I prefer to assign sessions of guided sleuthing whether in microfilmedjournals or the librarys 16 and 35mm holdings. Such undergraduate research forays never fail to

provide the class with a cornucopia of primary materials, from film programs of early twentiethcentury Chautauquas to visual records of Le Corbusier and Xenakis Philipps Pavilion at the 1958Worlds Fair. In both cases the excitement of student-led discovery was accompanied by a vividdemonstration of the weeks theme: the moving image in its live, performative dimension. Studentpresentations and discussion-leading also promote a culture of mutual responsibility for the coursessuccess.

Finally, it is equally vital to cultivate a classroom environment where healthy skepticism issanctioned and alternative viewpoints and life-experiences related to the material are invited. Sinceour field deals with popular culture and its historic permutations, it is, to my mind, crucial to allowstudents to doubt and question the validity of established theories and ultimately develop an attitudeof critical appreciation of the endless varieties of moving images that they encounter daily. Teaching

in a field as interdisciplinary and evolving as film and media studies necessitates a constantadaptation and diversification of ones pedagogical techniques, one driven by both the changingnature of the content as well as the format of our field of study. Both inside and outside theclassroom I have tried to provide my students with the tools they need to face their image-saturatedpresent while appreciating the historical and conceptual context of the media that make it up.