Emre Caglayan
Assistant Professor, Program Coordinator for Film Studies
- Department: Communication, Media and Culture
Professor 脟a臒layan joined the American University of Paris in 2022 after teaching at New York University London, University of Brighton and Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, where he lived for many years. He completed his PhD in Film Studies in 2014 at the University of Kent. His widely cited thesis Screening Boredom: The History and Aesthetics of Slow Cinema was later published as Poetics of Slow Cinema: Nostalgia, Absurdism, Boredom by Palgrave in 2018.
脟a臒layan's current research project examines the intersections between the embodied experiences of walking and cinema, and investigates the dimensions in which our relationship to urban and natural space is configured through film. He aims to go beyond considering the representation of walking on screen and instead invites audiences to take part in walking activities and share their individual as well as collective experiences. Through curating film seasons and designing walking prompts, 脟a臒layan proposes to place an audience鈥檚 uniquely individual response to a particular film in dialogue with a particularly commonplace activity, and guides them to reflect on the diverse ways of being in and belonging to the world.
Professor 脟a臒layan is a scholar of film theory with an expertise in global art cinema and its aesthetic, geopolitical and institutional contexts. His research explores the ways in which cinema shapes our lived experience and is supported by a historically grounded close analysis of texts and the cultural ecology of their production. His most recent publications focus on the affective qualities of film music and sound design, representations of urbanscapes and masculinity, ethics of political filmmaking, and artists's correspondences through film and video.
Education/Degrees
- PhD in Film Studies, University of Kent, 2014
- MA in Film and Television, Istanbul Bilgi University, 2009
Publications
Books

Articles
- 鈥淪talkers of Istanbul: Silence, Urban Space and Damaged Masculinity in Nuri Bilge Ceylan鈥檚 Distant,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Quarterly Review of Film and Video 39.2 (2022): 323-340.
- 鈥淥n Cinema and Walking,鈥&苍产蝉辫; (2020).
- 鈥淒ispatch from Sarajevo: Notes on the Political Correctness of Differential Laughter,鈥&苍产蝉辫; (2018).
- 鈥淪ounds of Slowness: Ambience and Absurd Humour in Slow Sound Design,鈥&苍产蝉辫;The New Soundtrack 8.1 (2018): 31-48.
- 鈥淒on't shoot! Understanding students' experiences of video-based learning and assessment in the arts,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy 2.1 (2017): 1-13 (co-authored with Tony Reeves and Ruth Torr).
- 2016 鈥淭he Aesthetics of Boredom: Slow Cinema and the Virtues of the Long Take in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Projections: the Journal for Movies and Mind 10.1 (2016): 63-85.
Book Chapters
- 鈥淭he Politics of Dialogue and Ethics of Engagement: K谋艧 Uykusu/Winter Sleep (2014),鈥 in , edited by G枚n眉l D枚nmez-Colin, Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
- 鈥淓pistolary Distance and Reciprocity in Jos茅 Luis Guer铆n and Jonas Mekas鈥 Filmed Correspondences,鈥 in , edited by Catherine Fowler and Teri Higgins, Amsterdam University Press, 2023.