Matthew Holtmeier, postdoctoral teaching fellow in screen studies, recently delivered papers at two academic conferences.
At the annual Cultural Studies Association conference (Riverside, CA), Holtmeier discussed the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire in the context of teaching world cinema. In particular, he argued for the potential of developing what Arjun Appadurai has called a ‘capacity to aspire’ by using films from diverse contexts as Freire’s codifications, and thereby emphasized the importance of global media curriculum.
At the annual Film-Philosophy conference (Oxford, UK), Holtmeier presented on the depiction of the precariat in US independent film. He traces the development of this socio-economic class to a new aesthetic in American film that elides causal narrative connections and promotes the physical embodiment of a Brechtian ‘gest’ in the bodily expression of actors in certain strains of independent cinema. This gest distanciates the viewer, and prompts them to consider the recent US financial crisis.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20150811164754289