Workshop: Introduction to the Scholarly Video Essay

Image from Cinephilia and History, or The Mystery of William Keighley (Christian Keathley, 2024)

27-28 May 2025

Scholarly video essays are peer-reviewed article-equivalent studies in audiovisual form published in dedicated journals or collected as ‘videographic books’ (the first such book was published last year). The video essay has been developed over the last decade by scholars of film and media especially. But in an online world dominated by the audiovisual, video essay-making will likely become a core academic skill in the way that writing is today. It is already an invaluable medium of research and thinking, as well as a means of communication across disciplines and beyond the academy. See below for links to examples of the video essay form.

This event will introduce the variety and practice of scholarly video essay-making and will showcase work by renowned maker-scholars. The event is in three parts, and participants should register for each part they wish to attend. Please note that numbers are limited for part 2, the hands-on workshop.

The venue will partly be at Media Studies (Adorno building 5008) and AIAS, building 1630.

Programme

Tuesday 27 May 2025
Part 1: Introducing the scholarly video essay

Venue: AIAS, building 1630.301

09:00 Introduction. Light breakfast provided.

09:30-11:30 Presentations by John Gibbs, Catherine Grant and Alan O’Leary. Each choose and lead discussion of exemplary videos that demonstrate the affordances and potential of the video essay as a scholarly form.

Open to all, but please register here.

Tuesday/ Wednesday 27-28 May 2025
Part 2: Making a video essay. Hands-on workshop

Venue: Media Studies, Katrinebjerg, Adorno building 5008 and AIAS building 1630.301

Participants will be guided through the making of their own short video essay, drawing on textual and audiovisual materials that speak to their own research interests. Equipment, guidance, and technical training will be provided, with no previous experience required. Refreshments and lunch provided.

Tuesday 27 May

12:30–17:00 Workshop begins, Media Studies, Katrinebjerg, Adorno building 5008

17:30-19:00 Light dinner served at AIAS

Wednesday 28 May

09:00-15:00 Workshop continues, Media Studies, Katrinebjerg, Adorno building 5008

16:00-17:30 Sharing of video essays at AIAS with light refreshments and celebratory drinks.

Numbers are limited and we ask participants to commit to both days of the hands-on workshop. Please register here.

Wednesday 28 May 2025
Part 3: New Video Essays: Screening and roundtable discussion

Venue: AIAS, building 1630.301

18:00-20:00 Screening will include a collaborative video essay by Barbara Zecchi (AIAS Tandem Fellow 2024) and Alan O’Leary, and new work by John Gibbs (AIAS Tandem Fellow 2025), and Catherine Grant.

The centerpiece of the screening is a major work by Christian Keathley, the long-in-the-making Cinephilia and History, or The Mystery of William Keighley (57’, 2024).

The screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion with the video-makers John Gibbs, Catherine Grant, Chris Keathley, and Alan O’Leary, chaired by Mathias Bonde Korsgaard (Aarhus).

Open to all, but please register here.

Registration

Part 1 Introducing the scholarly video essay. Register here.

Part 2 Hands-on workshop (numbers are limited, and we ask participants to commit to both days of the hands-on workshop). Register here.

Part 3 New Video Essays: Screening and roundtable discussion. Register here.

Workshop leaders

John Gibbs is an award-winning video essayist, AIAS Tandem Fellow (2025), Professor of Film and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research at the University of Reading, and co-editor of Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism. He has run five, week-long interdisciplinary videographic summer schools, establishing a community of practice with academics from subjects including theatre, modern languages, history, archaeology, English literature, pharmacy and museum studies as well as film and television.

Catherine Grant is Honorary Professor at Aarhus University (and previous visitor to AIAS), and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading, UK. Grant is internationally renowned for her work on the audiovisual essay, especially in found-footage, first-person and essay-film forms. Her work has been screened at film festivals and museums around the world, and she co-founded the award-winning journal [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, where she served as co-editor for the journal’s first decade.

Christian Keathley is the Walter J Cerf Distinguished Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middelbury College, Vermont. He is co-author, with Catherine Grant and Jason Mittell, of The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound & Image (revised and expanded 2019), available online as The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy. He is a founding co-editor of [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, and is co-recipient with Jason Mittell of two National Endowment for the Humanities grants for the influential “Scholarship in Sound & Image” summer workshops that have taught video essay-making to faculty from around the world.

Alan O’Leary is Associate Professor in Film and Media at Aarhus and Associate Fellow at AIAS. He leads the Filmmaking Research, Academic Film and Videographic Criticism research unit, and is an academic filmmaker and award-winning video essayist whose current research concerns the methods and poetics of the video essay as such. He has published video essays in leading journals including [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Studies, where he is now co-editor.

Sidse Prehn Thomsen is Media Technician at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus. She collaborates on the teaching of short film and video essay production courses at BA and MA level, and co-organised the workshop ‘Videoessays and Academic Filmmaking: Practices, Pedagogies and Potentials’ in November 2022 with Alan O’Leary and Mathias Bonde Korsgaard. Also with O’Leary, she has co-authored the report, ‘Screen Production in MEDJOUR: Supporting Research, Teaching, and Employability’ (2023).