National and Global: Twenty-Five Years of Film Studies in a Canadian Context

With this issue and the next, the Canadian Journal of Film Studies/Revue canadienne d'études cinématographiques marks its twenty-fifth year of continuous publication. This has been a collective accomplishment, one achieved by those many individuals who have, for all those years, edited the journal, served on the Editorial Board, managed its finances, submitted the SSHRC publishing grant application, worked as assistants, solicited book reviews, stuffed envelopes and licked stamps, answered letters (and later, emails), designed the covers, made the proofs, maintained the website, and done the many other various tasks that have kept this enterprise going. Most importantly, for twenty-five years, authors have been submitting their articles and reviewers have been reading and evaluating them. That kind of evaluation fulfills what is perhaps the most fundamental scholarly obligation we have, which is to review the work of our peers. By doing that, we make possible what is ultimately a collective endeavour: the publication and dissemination of our research and our ideas.

Scholarly journals play an indispensible role in the development of disciplines, and over the past twenty-five years the CJFS/RCÉC has been a major venue for the work of film scholars in Canada, and from around the world, a site of intellectual and scholarly activity that has played no small part in the growth of film studies in this country. When the journal began publishing two and a half decades ago, there were a few Film Studies departments in Canada offering undergraduate courses, and even some MA programmes. In the intervening years, though, the number of programmes has grown markedly, so that Film Studies is offered at both the undergraduate and graduate level in almost every university in the country, with several new PhD programmes created in the last few years.

The CJFS/RCÉC is published by the Film Studies Association of Canada/Association canadienne d'études cinématographiques. Mandated in the FSAC/ACÉC constitution, the publication of a journal was to be a major part of the association's effort "to foster and advance the study of the history and art of film and related fields." The success of the CJFS/RCÉC is revealed most significantly, I think, in the role that it has played—whether directly or indirectly—in the achievement of such a goal, in the flourishing of film and media studies in Canada. From the very beginning, moreover, the journal was bilingual, publishing work in both English and French. The first French articles appeared in 1995, and scholarship in French has since then been regularly published in the journal.

While the association was founded in 1977, it was only in 1991 that the journal began publishing. Zuzana Pick was an original member from 1988 of the FSAC/ACÉC editorial board, and editor of the CJFS/RCÉC from 1993 to 1997. In her reminiscences from that time, included as part of this twenty-fifth anniversary issue, she describes the efforts that she and others—especially Peter Morris, Peter Harcourt, Michael Dorland, Bart Testa, and Peter Rist—made to get the journal underway, and notes the "teamwork and collegiality" of those early years that ensured its initial success. It is just such teamwork and collegiality that has kept the journal going, providing such an important national venue for Canadian film scholarship. Since the journal was founded, there have been seven editors, and a large number of volunteers who have served on the Editorial Board. Peter Morris was the founding editor, from 1991-1993, followed by Zuzana Pick, from 1993-1996, who consolidated the journal's early success, and then William Wees, from 1996-2008. In 2000, the new position of Managing Editor was created, with Angela Stukator first serving, and then Blaine Allan as both Chair and Managing Editor, from 2002 to 2009, providing invaluable editorial guidance. Under the direction of Wees and Allan, the journal's reach was significantly expanded, and the journal was re-designed. From 2008 to 2014, the journal was co-edited by Catherine Russell and Charles Acland, with Peter Urquhart assuming the role...