Professor Alan Marcus

Biography

Professor Alan Marcus is a cultural historian, film practitioner and Chair in Creative and Cultural Practice, having joined the University of Aberdeen in January 2007 from the University of Manchester, where he was Director of the Centre for Screen Studies.  Previously to being appointed as Lecturer in Screen Studies in the Drama Department at Manchester in 1994 and devising the Drama and Screen Studies degree programme, he was on the film faculty of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.  The research focus of postgraduate studies at Cambridge was on the influence of film and literary representations of the Inuit on public perceptions and government interventions, which drew on his fieldwork conducted in four Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic.  Undergraduate training at the University of Illinois in Film and Fine Arts.  Writer, director and producer of documentaries and other television programmes for  broadcasters ABC-TV and CBS-TV (USA) and Channel Four (UK), including films such as People of the Four Winds (1988) on cultural change as perceived through the work of Sami artists in a reindeer-herding community above the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden and Finland.  Member of the Director's Guild of America since 1984.  Work shown in photographic exhibitions, video installations in avant garde and museum exhibitions, and films at public screenings.

• BBC Profile Interview
• Wolfson College Cambridge Magazine profile
• Aberdeen University Magazine profile
• Interview with Sir David Attenborough
• The Director's Cut series

External Memberships

• Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
• Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge
• Life Member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
• Fellow, Royal Historical Society
• Fellow, Royal Society for Arts
• Fellow, Cambridge Philosophical Society
• Member, Directors Guild of America

Research Overview

Areas of research include:

• using creative practice-as-research to explore iconic post-traumatic sites and marginalized communities;
• representations of the city in film and visual culture;
• the history of documentary film, documentary practice modalities and other forms of documentary imagery;
• representations on the impact of environmental change, issues of ethnicity and the representation of indigenous peoples;
• variation in communication within and across cultures.

Current Research

Areas of practice-as-research extend the focus on post-traumatic sites, including in One Market Day (2011) made in Guernica, One Hot Day (2011) set in Hiroshima, and In the Birch Grove (2012) in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

After making documentaries for British and American television on such topics as cultural change in a Sami reindeer-herding community in northern Sweden, People of the Four Winds (1989), Marcus conducted fieldwork in Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic, which resulted in two books, including Relocating Eden (1995), and a series of articles. This research explored issues of filmic and literary representations of indigenous peoples, and such themes as cross-cultural perspectives of landscape, homeland and sense of place. His work in visual anthropology includes, Nanook of the North as Primal Drama (2006), on Robert Flaherty’s classic film set in the Canadian north.

The stature and systemic role of the urban environment in society as featured in film, photography, pictorial art and other forms of visual culture, occupies a key area of his current research. His co-edited book, Visualizing the City (Routledge, 2008), presents a range of interdisciplinary explorations that illustrate our fascination with the urban experience, modernity and different architectural idioms. His guest edited journal issues on various aspects of Visualising the City include History of Photography (2006), The Journal of Architecture (2006) and Film Studies (2007).

Creative Practice-as-Research

The film's title, 216 Beach Walk, Waikiki (2018, 30mins), refers to the former address of author Jack London during his period in Hawaii in 1915-16 when he was stimulating interest in the islands through his writings. By chance, the same location is now the back door of Trump Int’l Hotel Waikiki. In the film, high-rise developments serve as magnified totems for a heavily congested urban environment fuelled by Waikiki’s fabled touristic appeal. The film questions this interpretation of a paradisiacal paradigm in what could otherwise be termed a post-traumatic site, drawing on the creation and toxicity of the Ala Wai Canal as a potent metaphorical comment. This research project received funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Screening with panel discussion at the University of Hawaii (2018), featured as a video installation in the CONTACT Exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Art School (2018), and screened at the Jack London conference at the Univ. of Nevada (2018). Invited speaker with screening, Huntington Library (2019).

The New Colossus (2017) 30min research film focuses on links between events around 9/11 and the current controversy over the US/Mexican border/wall. Themes of national trauma, patriotism, anti-immigration and idealism infuse the film and served as the basis for its first screening in the UK and panel discussion at the University of Aberdeen (2017), and in the US before a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations (2018). Screening and Q&A, The Incomers Film Festival, Dumfries (2018). Screening and discussion at the Visible Evidence XXVI conference, USC (2019).

In the Birch Grove (2012), 30-minute observational film on contemporary sites at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, drawing upon entries in the diary of SS medical doctor Prof. Johann Paul Kremer. Screenings with talks at Kings College London (2012), Holocaust Memorial Day, Aberdeen (2013), Brown Univ (2013), Portsmouth (2013), Brandeis (2013), Derry, NI (2013), London (2014), Columbia Univ (2015) and UCLA (2018).

One Hot Day (2011), 30-minute observational film on an historic post-traumatic site, set in contemporary downtown Hiroshima, Japan. The film examines the redefinition of place at the hypocentre and its transfiguration through public forms of ritualized engagement. Screenings with talks at the Univ. of Hawaii (2014), Aberdeen (2015), Cambridge (2015).

One Market Day (2011), 30-minute observational film on an historic post-traumatic site, set in the contemporary Basque village of Guernica. Themes revealed in Picasso’s iconic work are considered within the present built environment. Screenings with talks at Liverpool (2011) and Aberdeen (2012).

The Memorial (2010), 30-minute practice-as-research film set in Boston, USA, focusing on the New England Holocaust Memorial. In Time of Place research project. Screenings and talk at York (2011) and special screening at SCMS Boston (2012).

The Cemetery (2010), 30-minute observational film set in the Jewish quarter in Prague, infused by the after presence of Franz Kafka. Forms part of the In Time of Place research project. Screening and talk at York (2011), Stockholm (2013), and Holocaust Memorial Day (2016).

The Ghetto (2009), 30-minute practice-as-research film set in Venice, Italy, that looks at ritualized activities by inhabitants and tourists within the built environment of the ancient Jewish quarter in Venice. In Time of Place research project. Screenings and talks at Cambridge (2009), Liverpool (2010), Dundee (2010), St. Francis, Nova Scotia (2010) and Caltech (2011).

In Place of Death (2008), 30-minute observational film that explores issues of absence, touristic encounters and the identity of place in the town of Dachau and its former concentration camp. In Time of Place research project. Screenings and talks at Cambridge (2008), Derby (2008), Edinburgh (2008), Haifa (2008), Kent (2008), Liverpool (2008), Manchester (2008), Syracuse (2008), Dublin (2009), three events at Cambridge (2010), St Francis, Nova Scotia (2010), St Mary’s, Nova Scotia (2010), Caltech (2011), Krakow (2011), Warsaw (2011), Aberdeen (2013), Hawaii (2013), Aberdeen (2015), Reykjavik (2016).

Teaching Responsibilities

• EL45TM Screenwriting: The Narrative Within the Frame
• EL4508 Creative Writing Folio Dissertation
• EL55TM Screenwriting: The Narrative Within the Frame