On March 4, 2023, Film Quarterly sponsored the scholar response roundtable for the 2023 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts (University of Chicago).
Participants: Courtney R. Baker, Terri Francis, Racquel Gates, Michael Gillespie, Hayley O’Malley, Miriam Petty, Yasmina Price, Samantha N. Sheppard, and Allyson Nadia Field (moderator)
The work of this dossier is grounded in a devotion to the study of black film and media. In total, it represents the emergence of new frequencies, priorities, and methodologies attuned to the continued evolution of the field, which, in the last twenty years, has seen the most sustained and rigorous proliferation of scholarship ever.
Looking back at my television diet of the past twenty years or so, I can point to many moments of discomfort. They have come up frequently in some series, more fleetingly in others. Often, though, these moments seemed to test the range and limits of my affective responses.
Last winter, Oscar campaigns may well have rolled through a city near you: visiting stars, catered snacks, diligent handlers, lots of hopes and dreams. Occasionally, a film or actor so exceeds the transactional nature of these events that mundanity is set aside for a moment and the event becomes special beyond its PR function.
On February 24th, Film Quarterly continued its exploration of new directions in disability film and media in part two of its webinar series discussing its special dossier “The New Disability Media” (Winter 2022) co-presented with NYU’s Center for Disability Studies and Center for Media, Culture & History. With Jenny Chamarette (University of Reading), Salome Chasnoff (Code of the Freaks), Arseli Dokumaci (Concordia University), Rodney Evans (Vision Portraits), and Carrie Sandahl (Code of the Freaks). Moderated by dossier co-editors B. Ruby Rich (Film Quarterly), Faye Ginsburg (NYU) and Lawrence Carter-Long (DisArt).
These are fraught days. As I have written in this space too often, it’s past time for filmmakers, curators, producers, exhibitors, distributors, and online platforms to step up to the demands of their historic moment, stop proceeding on automatic pilot, and summon the courage to offer visions of a different future.
This dossier has been inspired by an unprecedented and exciting surge in New Disability Media, a movement in which disabled filmmakers are at the forefront of the repositioning of figurations of disability, acting as both creators and subjects while deploying new aesthetic strategies. The following essays take up films, videos, online media, and installations, as well as the emergent theoretical approaches to evolving disability representations and authorship.
Film Quarterly’s original webinar series showcasing the best in recent film and media studies publications continued on October 21st with a conversation between Page Views editor Bruno Guaraná (Boston University) and Lynn Spigel (Northwestern) about her new book, TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life (Duke University Press, 2022). Moderated by FQ editor-in-chief B. Ruby Rich.
Join Film Quarterly on October 21st for a conversation between Page Views editor Bruno Guaraná (Boston University) and Lynn Spigel (Northwestern) about her new book TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life (Duke University Press, 2022). Moderated by FQ editor-in-chief B. Ruby Rich.
Interview: Karim Aïnouz
Madame Satã at Twenty
A Night of Knowing Nothing
Refugee Narratives—Before Flee
Insomnia of a Serial Dreamer
Page Views: Lynn Spigel
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Cannes Film Festival at Seventy-Five
Columns: Dementia, Close-Ups, Julia Child