Professor David MacDougall

ARC Professorial Fellow

T: (02) 6125 4554
F: (02) 6248 0054
E: David.MacDougall@anu.edu.au

David MacDougall is an ethnographic filmmaker, scholar, and writer on cinema, the social sciences, and education. Although born in the USA of American and Canadian parents, he has lived in Australia since 1975. He was educated at the Dalton School, the Putney School, Harvard University, and the University of California at Los Angeles. His first film To Live with Herds won the Grand Prix “Venezia Genti” at the Venice Film Festival in 1972. In 1973 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which was used to make a trilogy of films on the Turkana of northwestern Kenya with his wife, Judith MacDougall. Since then he has made a number of prize-winning films in Australia, Europe and India focusing on the social experience of people in diverse situations and cultures. These include Photo Wallahs (1991), made with Judith MacDougall, on local photographers in the hill station of Mussoorie. In 1995 he won the Earthwatch Film Award. In 1997 he began a long-term study of the Doon School in northern India. This has resulted in five films, the first two being Doon School Chronicles (2000) and With Morning Hearts (2001). Retrospectives of MacDougall's work have been held in New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Freiburg, and Tokyo. His publications include a book, Transcultural Cinema and such journal articles as 'Beyond Observational Cinema', “'Ethnographic Film: Failure and Promise', “'Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography' , and “'Social Aesthetics and The Doon School'”. A new book of essays is due to be published in 2004. In 2001-02 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He is currently an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University and Director of its Program in Visual Research.

Research Projects

David MacDougall completed his Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg) in July, having spent a year working on a book on visual anthropology. During the year he also gave papers and other presentations in London, Paris, Rome, Munich, Heidelberg, Tunis, Rome, Sydney and New Delhi. In August he completed an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and took up a new ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship at the CCR, where he will work on a research project on social aesthetics funded by an ARC Discovery grant. In March and October he made field trips to India to further his work on the Doon School Project and survey sites for a new ethnographic film project to begin in 2003. In October he concluded the first stage of a collaborative project funded by an ANU Faculty Research grant to explore intentionality in ethnographic filmmaking with Gary Kildea, Director of the Ethnographic Film Unit at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Toward the end of the year he completed the fourth film in the Doon project, The New Boys, and edited the final film in the series, The Age of Reason.

Professional Societies

1994-2000

Member, Rhetoric Culture Project, Mainz University (Germany);
Australian Delegate, International Commission on Visual Anthropology, ICAES (International Commission on Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences);
Advisory Committee, Margaret Mead Film Festival, American Museum of Natural History, New York; Co-organiser,; Juror, ethnographic film festivals at Paris, Göttingen, Sibiu (Romania), Nuoro (Italy).

Editorial Boards:

Associate Editor, Visual Anthropology;
Editorial Consultants Board, Visual Anthropology Review;
Editorial Advisory Board, Humanities Research

Teaching and Supervision

1997- Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and Convenor, Program in Visual Research, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University
1996 Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, New York University
1994 Simon Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Manchester
1993 Visiting Lecturer, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University
1993 Regents' Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
1991 Visiting Professor, Institute of Social Science, University of Tromsø, Norway
1983 Visiting Lecturer, Queens University, Canada
1980 Filmmaker-in-Residence, National Film and Television School, Great Britain
1970-75 Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Co-Director, Rice University Media Center, Houston
1967-69 Teaching Assistant, Motion Picture Division, Department of Theatre Arts, University of California at Los Angeles (part time)
1962-64 Volunteer Teacher, US Peace Corps, Malawi

Supervision

Current

Silke Andris, PhD Candidate, CCR, ANU

Awards and Distinctions

2001 Retrospective of films, Freiburg Film Festival
1998 Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology
1997 Retrospective of films, Beeld voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam
1995 Earthwatch Film Award
1994
Golden Plaque Award, Chicago Film Festival
Film Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute
Ökomedia Film Award, Freiburg
Award for Excellence, Society for Visual Anthropology
Retrospective of films, Münchener Stadtmuseum
1992
Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Film/Video Fellowship
Honorary Mention, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco Film Festival
Film Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute
1987 Documentary Fellowship, Australian Film Commission
(taken up 1988)
1985 Finalist, Best Documentary, Australian Film Awards
1984 Retrospective of films, Münchener Stadmuseum
1984 Retrospective of films, Berlin Film Festival
1983 Finalist, Greater Union Awards, Sydney Film Festival
1981 Retrospective of films, Nippon Audio Visual Hall, Tokyo
1980
Film Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Retrospective of films, Conference on Visual Anthropology, Philadelphia
Retrospective of films, Media/Study Buffalo, New York
Honoured Filmmaker, 1980 Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York
1979 First Prize of Cinéma du Réel Festival, Paris
1973 National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) film grant
1972
Grand Prix “Venezia Genti”, Venice Film Festival
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
1969 Louis B. Mayer Foundation Fellowship
1968 Ford Foundation International and Comparative Studies film grant
1967 Carl Foreman Film Fellowship

Films and Publications

1997/2001
With Morning Hearts, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research,
Australian National University. 110 minutes.

Karam in Jaipur, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research,
Australian National University, 56 minutes.

1997/2000 Doon School Chronicles, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University. 143 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1992/93 Tempus de Baristas (Time of the Barmen). Instituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico/Fieldwork Films & BBC Televison. 100 minutes (Director/Camera)

1988/91 Photo Wallahs. Fieldwork Films/Australian Film Commission/Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 60 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1986/87 Link-Up Diary. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
86 minutes. (Director/Writer/Camera)

1982/86
Sunny and the Dark Horse. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 85 minutes. CoDirector/Camera)

A Transfer of Power. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 22 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1982/84
Stockman's Strategy. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

Collum Calling Canberra. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 58 minutes. (Co-Director/ Camera)

1978/82 Three Horsemen. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 54 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera

1974/81 A Wife Among Wives. 75 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1978/80 Takeover. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 90 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1977/80 Familiar Places. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 53 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1977/78 To Get That Country. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1975/77 Good-bye Old Man. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1974/79 Lorang's Way. 70 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1974/77 The Wedding Camels. 108 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1972/74 Kenya Boran. American Universities Field Staff. 66 minutes. (Co-Director/Camera)

1970 Man Looks at the Moon. Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films. 25 minutes. (Writer/Director)

1968/74 Under the Men's Tree. 15 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1968/72 To Live With Herds. 70 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1968/70 Nawi. 20 minutes. (Director/Camera)

1968/89 Imbalu: Ritual of Manhood of the Gisu of Uganda, Richard Hawkins and Suzette Heald. 75 minutes. (Camera)

1967 J. Lee Thompson: Director. Columbia Pictures. 15 minutes. (Director/Camera).

Books

1998 Transcultural Cinema. Selected essays, edited by Lucien Taylor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2001
'Renewing Ethnographic Film', Anthropology Today. Royal Anthropological Institute, 17 (3): 3-9.
'Blind Ducks in Borneo', In Displaced Objects, Karl-Heinz Kohl (ed.) Frankfurt: Frobenius Institute - Frankfurter Kunstverein.

'Radically Empirical Documentary: An Interview with David and Judith MacDougall' Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor (eds.) Film Quarterly, 54 (2), 2-14.

1999
'Social Aesthetics and The Doon School' Visual Anthropology Review, 15 (1): 3-20.

'When Less is Less', Film Quarterly, 1992, 46 (2): 36-45. Reprinted in Film Quarterly: Forty Years—A Selection, University of California Press, 1999, 290-306.

1997
'The Visual in Anthropology', In Rethinking Visual Anthropology, Banks, Marcus and Howard Morphy (eds.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

'Visual Anthropology and the Ways of Knowing', In Visual Anthropology at the Crossroads, Jay Ruby & Paul Stoller (eds) Santa Fe: School of American Research.

1995
'The Subjective Voice in Ethnographic Film' In Fields of Vision, L. Devereaux & R. Hillman (eds) Berkeley: University of California Press.

'Subtitling Ethnographic Films: Archetypes into Individualities', Visual Anthropology Review, 11 (1): 83-91.

1992
'Photo Wallahs: An Encounter with Photography'Visual Anthropology Review, 8 (2): 96-100.

'Films de Mémoire' Le Journal des Anthropologues, Special Issue, No. 47-48, Spring 1992: 67-86. (Also printed (in English) as: 'Films of Memory' Visual Anthropology Review, 1992, 8 (1): 29-37. Reprinted: Visualizing Theory, L.Taylor (ed.), New York: Routledge, 1994: 260-70.)

"Mais, au fait, l'anthropologie visuelle existe-t-elle vraiment?" In Demain, le cinéma ethnographique?. Special issue of CinémaAction, J-P. Colleyn & C. De Clippel (eds), 1992, 64: 51-57. (Reprinted (in Portuguese): II Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnografico, P. Monte-Mór & C. Peixoto (eds) Rio de Janeiro, 1994: 71-75.)

1992
'Whose Story Is It?' Visual Anthropology Review, 1991, 7 (2): 2-10. (Reprinted: Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions, P. I. Crawford & J. K. Simonsen (eds) Aarhus: Intervention Press, 1992: 25-42. Reprinted: Visualizing Theory, L. Taylor (ed.) New York: Routledge, 1994: 27-36.)

'Complicities of Style', In Film as Ethnography., Peter I. Crawford & David Turton (eds), Manchester University Press, : 90-99.

'Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography' Visual Anthropology, 5 (2): 103-29.

1988 'Versuche mit dem inneren Kommentar' Flahertys Erben, Trickster Verlag, 16: 46-61.

1987 'Media Friend, Media Foe?' Visual Anthropology, 1 (1): 54-58.

1986 'Film Teaching and the State of Documentary' CILECT Review, Centre Internationale de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinema et Television, 2 (1): 105-10.

1978 'Ethnographic Film: Failure and Promise' Annual Review of Anthropology 7, pp 405-25.

1975 'Beyond Observational Cinema', In Principles of Visual Anthropology, Paul Hockings (ed.) The Hague: Mouton,109-24. (Reprinted in Movies and Methods, Vol. 2, Bill Nichols (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985: 274-87. Reprinted (in French): Pour une anthropologie visual, C. de France, ed. Paris: Mouton Editeur, 1979: 89-104. Reprinted (in German): Kinemathek 60: Film und Ethnographie, 1982: 14-27. Reprinted (in Italian): Figure dell'uomo: antropologia e cinema, Rita Cedrini (ed.) Palermo: Sellerio editore, 1990: 87-97.)

1969-70 'Prospects of the Ethnographic Film' Film Quarterly Winter 23 (2): 16-30. (Reprinted: Movies and Methods, Vol. 1, Bill Nichols (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976: 135-50.)

Other Publications

2000 'Filmare I Bambini', In Bambini-Children-Pizzinos, P. Piquerredu (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico.

1996 'Reframing Ethnographic Film: A ‘Conversation’ with David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall” Ilisha Barbash and Lucien Taylor, eds. American Anthropologist 98 (2): 371-387.

1995
Conversations with Anthropological Film-Makers: David MacDougall. Anna Grimshaw and Nikos Papastergiadis, (eds) Cambridge: Prickly Pear Press.

'A Silence in Stockholm' CVA Newsletter, Commission on Visual Anthropology 1/95.

1994 'Films and Rivers', In L'Uomo e il Fiume, P. Piquereddu, (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico, 23-26.

1992
'Reflections on Visual Anthropology in the Mountains' In Montagne, P Piquereddu (ed.) Nuoro: Istituto Superiore Regionale Etnografico, pp 23-27.

'Reflections on Events at the Humanities Research Centre', CVA Review, Fall : 42-44.

'Documentary Film Festival', SVA Newsletter, 5 (2): 27-30.

1982 'Unprivileged Camera Style', RAIN (Royal Anthropological Institute Newsletter), No. 50, June : 8-10. (Reprinted (in German): Die Fremden Sehen, M. Friedrich et al. eds, Munich: Trickster Verlag, 1984: 73-83.)

1981
'A Need for Common Terms” SAVICOM Newsletter', Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communication 9 (1): 5-6.

'The Ethnographic Film as Inquiry: An Interview with David MacDougall' University of California Extension Media Center, Berkeley. Lifelong Learning, No. 1: 2-3,5. (Reprinted (in German): Die Fremden Sehen, M. Friedrich et al. eds, Munich: Trickster Verlag, 1984: 109-19.)

1980 'Notes on the Making of Lorang's Way” A Retrospective of the Ethnographic Films of David and Judith MacDougall', Gerald O'Grady (ed.) Buffalo: Media Study/Buffalo: 8.

1981
'Ethnographic Filming in Uganda', P.I.E.F. Newsletter (March) 2 (4): 2-5.

'A New Age of Scribes?', Institute for the Arts Newsletter, Rice University, Houston (Spring): 1.