Film and Photographic Studies (MA)
Meet our staff
Dr. J.J.M. Houwen
Janna Houwen is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. In her current research, she centers on political and social contexts where the interrelation between people and film and video art matters most: contexts where precisely the “being in the world” that art can foster is under threat; where being a person, living a political and personal life, is not self-evident. View her full profile here.
Dr. H.F. Westgeest
Helen Westgeest is a Senior University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Her current research zooms in on the role and nature of photography and video in mixed media works of art, while she also engages in comparative research into media in contemporary art. View her full profile here.
Dr. S.A. Shobeiri
Ali Shobeiri is Assistant Professor of Photography and Visual Culture at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). Ali Shobeiri's current research and publications are in the fields of photography theories, phenomenology, aesthetics, and spatial studies. View his full profile here.
Dr. I.F.D.M.R. Willemars
Ilios Willemars is a cultural analyst who teaches media, film and literary studies at Leiden University. Ilios is working on the cultural response to viral epidemics like HIV/AIDS in art, activism and theory. They have previously worked on digital representations of human bodies in video art, surveillance at airports, the work of Franz Kafka, and animals that commit suicide. Ilios is also editing a volume on the concept of replacement, has recently helped edit a book of poetry, and has done some work as a curator in Lisbon. Their most important mission as a teacher is to help students learn how to read for details and silences in texts and allow them to recognize theory as poetry and poetry as thought. An eclectic list of research interests follows here: insurance and derivatives, bio- and necropolitics, data and digital media, replacement and placeholders, contagion and contamination, queer and feminist theory, sacrifice and death. View their profile here.
Dr. S.W.M. De Cauwer
Stijn De Cauwer is a cultural theorist who teaches cultural theory, film, media and literary theory at Leiden University. In his research, he has explored the connection between various forms of cultural expression (literature, film, photography, art, protest movements) and societal challenges (inequality, environmental challenges, biopolitics…). He has published scholarly work on cultural and theoretical responses to situations of crisis, on the use of images to understand dynamics of oppression and resistance (especially in the work of Georges Didi-Huberman), on the continuing relevance of theories of biopolitics (such as in Italian political theory) and on literary responses to changes in society in the early 20th century (with a focus on the work of Robert Musil and Alfred Döblin). View his profile here.