ZdC - Cinema and Media Studies at USC School of Cinematic Arts

09/24/2021

The organizing committee is excited to release the program and registration for the 2021 First Forum Graduate Student Conference hosted by ZdC - Cinema and Media Studies at USC! We asked graduate students to submit only their hottest takes on the theme of Post(ing) and they all delivered.

First Forum 2021 is entirely virtual and will be held over four evenings on October 21, 22, 28, and 29. Check out the full schedule and register at: https://firstforumconference.org

Our keynote address will be delivered by q***r games scholar Dr. Bo Ruberg on Thursday, Oct 21 at 5pm Pacific. You can register for the keynote on Zoom: https://usc.zoom.us/.../tJckdemgrDgrHNFVh1soJM7BdGpuEVzCDbsG

06/07/2021

We're giving you a little more time to contemplate the true meaning of posting. We've extended the CFP deadline for this year's First Forum Graduate Student Conference. Submit your abstracts by June 23!
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FIRST FORUM GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE 2021
OCTOBER 21, 22, 28, & 29
DIVISION OF CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES
SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

POST(ING)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We’re posting through it. All of it.

-posting on social media
-trolling and sh*t-posting
-post-theoretical paradigms and movements
-digital labor, content moderation and algorithms
-the postal service and infrastructure
-fans and celebrities
-posters and physical media
-going postal
-doomscrolling and attention economies
-the post-network TV era
-post-Covid-19
-bots and computation
-publics and publicity
-signposting and speech acts
-Postmates and gig economies
-outposts, fence posts, and borders
-post-production
-posting through it
-job posts and impostor syndrome

Our Call for Posts — The organizing committee of the 2021 First Forum Graduate Student Conference invites our fellow graduate student scholars to submit abstracts that explore the wide range of meanings suggested by the word “posting” as it relates to the fields of cinema and media studies, communication, gender and sexuality studies, ethnic studies, and science and technology studies.

While posting might immediately refer to the work of participating in digital networks and the increasingly visible labor, affect, and resources that participation demands, we invite submissions that touch upon a range of mediums, methodologies, and approaches, from post-production to the postal service. “Post-“ might suggest the numerous post-intellectual moments scholars speculate we have been entering and exiting since the 1970s. Yet, even the formation of these post-modern, feminist, racial, historical moments themselves have been called into question, leading some to ask if we are now in the post-post-modern, the post-post-feminist era or if there was anything “new” about these moments in the first place. Meanwhile, many of us try to imagine a post-Covid era as old and new social arrangements struggle to emerge. The tireless Twitter troll and commenter on the human condition asks us to consider “posting ethically, within reason,” a position the organizing committee asks applicants to take seriously as they reflect on the multivalent meanings of “posting.” Clearly, the novel social, historical, and political arrangements that make posting and the “post-” meaningful are being reevaluated by people across a wide range of contexts that invite scholarly attention and interrogation.

In order to encourage attendance, reduce burnout, and ensure the health and safety of participants, students, and the broader Los Angeles community, First Forum 2021 will be a virtual conference, with panels and events held over two weeks on October 21, 22, 28, and 29.

Submissions should include an abstract (-300 words) and a short biography (-150 words). Conference presentations will be 15-20 minutes. Applicants must submit their materials by June 23, 2021 to [email protected]. Please include “Name + First Forum 2021 Submission” in the subject line. We warmly welcome non-traditional projects, including but not limited to, video essays and art exhibitions alongside traditional academic papers.

04/20/2021

We're posting through it. ZdC is excited to announce this year's ZdC is excited to share the CFP for this year's First Forum Graduate Student Conference:

FIRST FORUM GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE 2021
OCTOBER 21, 22, 28, & 29
DIVISION OF CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES
SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

POST(ING)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We’re posting through it. All of it.

posting on social media
trolling and sh*t-posting
post-theoretical paradigms and movements
digital labor, content moderation and algorithms
the postal service and infrastructure
fans and celebrities
posters and physical media
going postal
doomscrolling and attention economies
the post-network TV era
post-Covid-19
bots and computation
publics and publicity
signposting and speech acts
Postmates and gig economies
outposts, fence posts, and borders
post-production
posting through it
job posts and impostor syndrome

Our Call for Posts — The organizing committee of the 2021 First Forum Graduate Student Conference invites our fellow graduate student scholars to submit abstracts that explore the wide range of meanings suggested by the word “posting” as it relates to the fields of cinema and media studies, communication, gender and sexuality studies, ethnic studies, and science and technology studies.

While posting might immediately refer to the work of participating in digital networks and the increasingly visible labor, affect, and resources that participation demands, we invite submissions that touch upon a range of mediums, methodologies, and approaches, from post-production to the postal service. “Post-“ might suggest the numerous post-intellectual moments scholars speculate we have been entering and exiting since the 1970s. Yet, even the formation of these post-modern, feminist, racial, historical moments themselves have been called into question, leading some to ask if we are now in the post-post-modern, the post-post-feminist era or if there was anything “new” about these moments in the first place. Meanwhile, many of us try to imagine a post-Covid era as old and new social arrangements struggle to emerge. The tireless Twitter troll and commenter on the human condition asks us to consider “posting ethically, within reason,” a position the organizing committee asks applicants to take seriously as they reflect on the multivalent meanings of “posting.” Clearly, the novel social, historical, and political arrangements that make posting and the “post-” meaningful are being reevaluated by people across a wide range of contexts that invite scholarly attention and interrogation.

In order to encourage attendance, reduce burnout, and ensure the health and safety of participants, students, and the broader Los Angeles community, First Forum 2021 will be a virtual conference, with panels and events held over two weeks on October 21, 22, 28, and 29.

Submissions should include an abstract (-300 words) and a short biography (-150 words). Conference presentations will be 15-20 minutes. Applicants must submit their materials by June 9, 2021 to [email protected]. Please include “Name + First Forum 2021 Submission” in the subject line. We warmly welcome non-traditional projects, including but not limited to, video essays and art exhibitions alongside traditional academic papers.

06/12/2020

Call for Volunteers!

Dear CAMS Family,

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg (among others) reported today that the Trump administration is considering an imminent executive order that would suspend immigration-related visas for an extended period of time. It may also prevent visa holders currently abroad from returning to the US. So far, there is no confirmation about whether or when such an order will be issued, and rumors are swirling about how this will affect international students.

We want to affirm that we stand with our immigrant and international community at USC and beyond. We are now looking for volunteers who would be willing to provide support by helping to seek and communicate information on behalf of our international students, should this executive order come to pass. We anticipate international students will be under a lot of stress if they are either forced to repatriate or stranded outside of the US. We are hoping to alleviate some of that stress by offering administrative help to each other. What this means: If you are willing to write and send emails to USC offices, professors, legal firms, or any other institutional bodies international students may need to quickly communicate with over the coming weeks, please send us a Facebook message or contact us via email.

Navigating bureaucracies is always difficult and cumbersome; it is especially stressful for those who did not grow up within the US system and are non-native English speakers. We will do our best to ensure that neither our international students nor our volunteers feel overburdened with navigating these tasks.

We are also looking for other forms of volunteering as well. If you would like to be on call as someone to pick up protestors, contribute to bail funds, help with groceries or housing concerns, etc. please do send us your information!

We are here for each other and want to make sure no one feels abandoned or left behind. If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to reach out. Thank you to everyone who has been giving time and energy to advocating on behalf of our graduate student community and keeping our community safe. We appreciate you more than you will ever know!

In solidarity,
CAMS Laborers and ZdC; CMSGA

05/27/2020

The faculty in cinema and media studies have written a public letter of support of the graduate students in the department.

You can read the letter here:

The faculty in Cinema and Media Studies have published a public letter in support of the graduate students in the department. The letter pushes one of our central demands for an additional year of …

02/13/2020

ZdC;CMSGA expresses solidarity with the graduate students at University of California, Santa Cruz. Our labor struggles is a shared one and we commend the work and resilience of the striking graduate students.

Consider signing the petition generated by the USC Graduate Student Organizing Committee:

The Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC) at the University of Southern California stands in solidarity with the striking graduate workers of UC Santa Cruz. We share the striking students’ struggle in the context of the rising cost of living in California, and recognize the important and di...

10/15/2019

First Forum 2019, "Constellations: Connections, Disruptions, and Imaginations in Cinema and Beyond," was made possible by the conference organizing committee, the work of CaMS PhD and MA volunteers, presenters from across institutions, faculty respondents, and attendees. A special edition of the peer-reviewed graduate student journal "Spectator" will publish essays from the conference (issue to be published in Spring 2021).

A sincere thank you to everyone who attended and we look forward to hosting you for another theme of First Forum in 2020.

Select photographs of First Forum 2019, "Constellations: Connections, Disruptions, and Imaginations in Cinema and Beyond."

10/15/2019

Select photographs of First Forum 2019, "Constellations: Connections, Disruptions, and Imaginations in Cinema and Beyond."

10/12/2019

Ennuri Jo's fascinating presentation on John Akomfrah's "Purple" ties together the film with questions of how to write disaster when disaster is constantly present. She asks who occupies the stage of being, and how climate change threatens the concept of the sovereign human subject. She looked at the way in which the scale of the film was spread out on various screens.

Followed by Aaron Katzeman's paper on Koyaannisaqtsi, where he performs a close reading of the film, and the way that the apocalypyse is figured. Drawing parallels between climate documentaries and cli-fi (commercial films about climate change), he looks at the affective response these films evoke. He shows us that the era filmmakers have always been interested and in some extent influenced by Indigenous knowledge in relation to disaster and ecologies.

Maggie Wander's paper “Navigating the Climate Crisis: Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner’s Creative Constellations” discusses embodied histories of climate change, especially in the Marshall Islands, where the US has ‘entombed’ remains of nuclear testing. She reads several of Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner’s films as relaying an experience of fragility in regions most affected by climate change. The paper calls for greater attention to the colonization of lands and bodies in the context of ecological damage.

Debjani Dutta’s interesting paper on the colonial infrastructures of timekeeping that grew in response to the need to track earthquakes in colonial India and other sites. She talks about the intermediality between seismological instruments and photography, and the ‘technological reordering of the senses’ in the 19th century that this entailed. The revelatory nature of these technological innovations was tied in with the expansions of the human sensorium in the colonial era.

10/11/2019

Our panel on Ecological Constellations is now live!

10/11/2019

Rose Rowson from Brown University presents "As Above, So Below: Modern Astrology and Digital Culture."

10/11/2019

Sammy Paul's stylization of the "everyday" complexifies the idea of the "vlog" as a back region of the social.