Scott C. Richmond

Studying with me

First of all, you should be very, very clear-eyed that an advanced degree in the humanities is, from a pragmatic point of view, a bad-to-catastrophic decision for many people. Perhaps you don't really want a PhD.

That said, if you do wish to come to the University of Toronto to study with me, here's a primer on how to do so. Please don't email me until you've read everything here; I get many emails from prospective students. This will very probably answer your questions. If it doesn’t, feel encouraged to reach out, but be specific with your questions.

Where I teach

Although most of my teaching is in the Cinema Studies Institute, I am eligible to direct dissertations in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and the Faculty of Information. I am also an affiliate of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, and can supervise students participating in SDS's Collaborative Specialization.

My current research program

I am currently working on a big, sprawling third project that lies at the intersection of the history of computing, media theory, and something like "critical making." The topic is the Logo programming environment, one of the first interactive graphical computing environments, devised starting in the late 1960s at MIT by a team led by Seymour Papert, learning theorist, mathematician, and computer scientist. My interest in this topic stems from a desire to write the history of contemporary computational subjectivity. How did it become desirable, and then necessary, to live our lives in intimate proximity to computing technologies? What had to happen to our sense of our selves for this to happen?

This is a projection forward of my intellectual formation. My PhD in Cinema and Media Studies. I studied film theory (and thus the impacts screens have on subjectivity), the early history of cinema (and thus the impacts new media technologies have on subjectivity), experimental film and media aesthetics (how doing new and weird things with screens can rearrange how we see the world), and affect theory (and thus understand the dynamics of intimacy). Theoretically speaking, I am oriented by phenomenological philosophy (especially Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalytic theory (especially object relations theory), queer and affect theory (Leo Bersani, Eve Sedgwick, Lauren Berlant), and the Frankfurt School (Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno).

I am also an inveterate computer nerd, with half an undergraduate degree in computer science. I have another half an undergraduate degree in media art, and got interested in film, media, and theory by dint of discovering I was much better at thinking about and writing about other people's art than in making my own.

Part of my current project involves having written a programming language, Ludus, whose design impulse is to enable engagement with the history of computing. I have been working with my research team to make a friendly programming environment and experimental curriculum, Computer Class.

You can take a look at my writing page to get a sense of what I've been publishing (recently and over the long term).

Students I'm seeking

I am interested in taking on students who are asking questions about some combination of: digital and/or media intimacies; media technologies and their ways of shaping experience, subjectivity, selves, or personhood; and experimental historiography of film, media, and computation. I am especially interested in working with students who are interested in practices of critical making and/or research creation.

To give a sense of fields I supervise, my current students are engaged in the following projects:

Postdoctoral or visiting student opportunities

I cannot take on new students of any kind outside of PhD students at U of T; I simply do not have the bandwidth. If you do digital work, you may be interested in the CDHI Postdoctoral program at U of T. If you do queer work, you may be interested in the QTRL postdoctoral program. Best of luck in your search.

MA Program in Cinema Studies

Just go ahead and apply, you wonderful keener! You don’t need to talk to me about your program of study for the MA, and I’m not on the committee making MA admissions decisions. Note that we cannot accept MA students who are not citizens or permanent residents of Canada.

PhD Program in Cinema Studies

To come to U of T to study with me, you’ll normally need to be admitted to the Cinema Studies Institute’s (CSI) PhD program. Our PhD program does not admit students to work with specific supervisors; instead, admission is based on a holistic assessment of fit between students, their program of study, and—crucially—CSI faculty members’ [plural] ability to support that program of study. Students select a supervisor in their second year in the program, and it’s not guaranteed a particular faculty member will be available, or agree, to serve as supervisor.

If indeed you apply to the CSI PhD program, in your statement of purpose, you ought to discuss multiple Cinema Studies faculty members you may wish to work with. Be specific about the ways your research interests overlap with at least two faculty members in CSI. Our understanding of cinema studies is very capacious indeed—any study of screens that is grounded in questions of aesthetics is welcome; but it is also tied to our particular people and their interests and expertise.

Please note that CSI does not admit students who do not have a master’s-level degree (MA, MFA, or similar) to the PhD program.

If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident

Please also note that, given the province of Ontario’s funding framework in which we operate, we cannot admit international MA students, and we are allowed only a small number of international students in our PhD program. In a typical year, we are able to admit one or maybe two international students to the PhD program in Cinema Studies. That means that admission for students without permanent status in Canada (PR or citizenship) is extremely competitive. Take the above advice especially to heart if you’re coming from outside of Canada.

Fields I supervise

These days, my work is primarily in (digital) media theory and the history of computing and media art, with particular attention to the aesthetics of early interactive computing and the emergence of computational structures of subjectivity. I still, obviously, direct dissertations related to film theory, queer theory, affect theory, and experimental media aesthetics. If you are working in the history of computing with a project grounded in aesthetics, please feel very encouraged to apply to CSI, despite the slant rhyme in your interests. That said, if you are working on the history of computing or digital media in ways that are not centrally grounded in aesthetics and wish to study with me, you may wish to consider pursuing a PhD either in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology or the Faculty of Information, where I am also eligible to direct dissertations. These paths come with some specific speed bumps; please contact their graduate offices for more information.

If there’s anything else you’d like me to know or to tell you, you can write. Please be specific about what you might need. Sadly, I cannot make appointments to discuss your program of study. If you’re admitted, I’ll be delighted to talk to you then.