Ithaca College

Conversations Across Screen Cultures, a new online initiative featuring live interviews and discussions with film and media scholars, media artists, and programmers in the Central New York region, launches on September 15, 2020.

This initiative will feature Central New York scholars interviewing guests about their new books, recent publications, current research, curatorial projects, and the state of the discipline.

The one-hour sessions will be held on alternating Tuesdays from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Sessions will feature open discussion and dialogue with students and faculty in attendance.

The initiative is a collaboration between faculty from Ithaca College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF), the Cine con Cultura festival, and the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival (SUHRFF).

The programming team includes Enrique Gonzalez-Conty, (Modern Languages and Literature and Cine con Cultura, Ithaca College); Jiantao (Harry) Gu (Media and Society, Hobart and William Smith Colleges); Leah Shafer (Media and Society, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Patricia R. Zimmermann (Screen Studies and FLEFF, Ithaca College)

Conversations Across Screen Cultures is designed to foster intellectual community and spark productive collaborations across institutions for students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate film and media studies courses at colleges and universities in the Central New York region. 

With most campuses restricting visiting scholars and filmmakers due to the pandemic, this initiative fills a need for institutions to bring their film and media students into public-facing intellectual environments.

The Zoom-based, invitation-only initiative will be integrated with courses at these regional institutions as a way to draw students in to larger networks of people, disciplines, and ideas in film and media culture when conferences, festivals, and gatherings are not possible due to the pandemic.

These sessions are open to students enrolled in film and media courses in the region whether they are being offered face-to-face, hybrid, or remote.  The initiative creates space for undergraduates to interact with students, graduate students, and faculty from other institutions and with the larger discipline of screen cultures.

The initiative developed out of an on-going informal consortium of film and media scholars in the Central New York region who meet regularly to share research and ideas about pedagogy. 

Upstate New York has a long, rich, and complex history of research and production in film, media, and new media dating back to the late 19th century.  The area is an epicenter of innovation in experimental and documentary film, participatory media practices, and technological advances. 

The region also has a longstanding and robust tradition of college and university public outreach and engagement through public film and media programming stretching back to the 1960s.  In the 1980s and 1990s, the Central New York Programmers’ Group, a New York State Council of the Arts funded organization, brought together scholars and makers who programmed to share knowledge, resources, and programs. Conversations Across Screen Cultures continues these traditions.

The first four sessions are slated for September and October, and will continue throughout the academic year:

September 15 Dr. Ulises Mejias, SUNY-Oswego (Digital media and Data mining), interviewed by Dr. Leah Shafer, Hobart and William Smith Colleges 

September 29 Dr. Camilo Malagon, Ithaca College (Latin American Cinema), interviewed by Dr. Enrique Gonzalez-Conty, Ithaca College

October 13 Dr. Roger Hallas, Syracuse University (Documentary and the Visual Arts), interviewed by Dr. Jiantao (Harry) Gu, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

October 27 Dr. Monika Mehta, Binghamton University (Cinemas of India and the Politics of Circulation), interviewed by Dr. Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ithaca College

 For more information, contact Dr. Patricia Zimmermann at Ithaca College at patty@ithaca.edu or Dr. Leah Shafer at Hobart and William Smith Colleges at shafer@hws.edu