Jan Krawitz in Paris

Jan Krawitz is the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities, Emerita. She taught in the Stanford MFA Program in documentary film and video for 34 years and at the University of Texas at Austin for eight. Her documentary films have screened at festivals in the United States and abroad including Sundance, the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, SXSW (South by Southwest), AFI Docs, Visions du Réel (Switzerland), Edinburgh International Film Festival, London Film Festival, and the Sydney International Film Festival. Jan’s films reflect her interest in overlooked aspects of American culture.

Jan was awarded artist residencies at Yaddo, Docs in Progress, and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and is currently a voting member of the Documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In 2022, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the Karl Franzens University of Graz in Austria. At Stanford, Jan received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and a Faculty Research Fellowship from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She has taught at Stanford Overseas Studies programs in Oxford and Berlin as well as at Stanford in Washington and New York. She also has served as a faculty lecturer at Stanford Sierra Camp.

During our program, Jan will explore the aesthetics of street photography (with tips on how to take pictures in a mindful way); discuss the work of seminal photographers who have situated their practice in France; examine the history and influence of French filmmakers on documentary film practice; and provide an overview of immigration policy in France.