During the fall semester of 2019, I pursed an interdisciplinary research project within the field of Cinema Studies that centered feminine affects. Though I had begun my independent research seminar on American avant-garde cinema, I ultimately found myself drawn to the works of Joanna Hogg. In this sense, I wanted to understand the theoretical frameworks that the Western film canon failed to explore. With the guidance of Professor Meta Mazaj, I explored contemporary discourses on slow cinema, women's cinema, and affect theory. 

In this project, I sought to answer the question: how does Hogg trouble the assumed hegemony of capitalism through affects of fatigue and tiredness? I prefaced my theoretical intervention within feminist discourses on filmmaking and slow cinema by placing her within the broader history of female directors that challenge Laura Mulvey’s avant-gardist approach to cinema. By the end of my project, I had settled on using Hogg's films Unrelatedand Exhibitionas my primary objects of study. 

Before successfully answering these research questions, I delved into works of Barbara Loden, Chantal Akerman, and Éric Rohmer. In addition, I read and incorporated the seminal writing of Elena Gorfinkel, Laura Mulvey, Tiago de Luca, and Nuno Barradas Jorge into my project. By the end of my work, I not only answered the questions I asked myself but gained a greater breadth of knowledge of scholarship within Cinema Studies, Gender Studies, and Literary Studies.