[UPDATE] Pedagogy 24 Times per Second: Film and Media in the Classroom (Submit by 12/15/14)

full name / name of organization: 
Graduate Film Studies Group, University of Florida
contact email: 

This conference takes as its starting point the relationship between pedagogical practice and scholarship, or how teaching film to undergraduate students affects, or is affected by, our scholarly methods and research interests.

Although it remains the less glamorous aspect of the film and media studies discipline, teaching is nonetheless the main context in which we develop our method of approaching texts. Indeed, as working academics, our day-to-day teaching is likely to have a much wider and more immediate impact than our conference presentations and journal articles. Yet the practical work of the researching educator is rarely the focus of academic conversations about film and media studies. Even as the discipline itself evolves to accommodate new media and theories, decreasing enrollment numbers foreground the need to defend the relevance of humanities courses in an increasingly outcome-driven climate. Therefore a full reexamination of the relationship between scholarly methods and teaching practices is of the utmost importance.

We invite panels and papers that address the relationship between scholarship and pedagogy at both the institutional and classroom level. Topics for papers addressing the relationship between scholarship and pedagogy at the institutional level may include, but are not limited to:

    • Historicizing the relationship between scholarship and
    curriculum design
    • Clarifying the role of film and/or media studies in
    Humanities education
    • (Re)defining the stakes of Humanities, especially Film
    and Media Studies, in an increasingly market-based
    university environment
    • Assessing the division between theory- and practice-based
    approaches to Film and Media studies
    • Designing assessment criteria for film courses,
    especially those listed for general Humanities, English,
    or composition credit

Topics for papers addressing the dynamic between scholarship and pedagogy at the classroom level may include, but are not limited to:

    • Theorizing the relationship between course outcomes and
    the aims of scholarship
    • Expanding the parameters of traditional film studies,
    including the integration of other media in the film
    classroom
    • Structuring introductory film courses (chronological,
    technical, regional, thematic, cinephiliac organization;
    organization that resists primarily ocularcentric
    approaches)
    • Incorporating multiple/conflicting modes of spectatorship
    and spectator positions into course design
    • Assessing the value of the untaught cannon and the role of
    non-traditional or underground cinema in the classroom

We also invite workshops, panels, and papers focused on practical pedagogical issues in film and media studies, such as syllabus design, lesson planning, text selection and pairing, classroom management, the aims of class discussion, and the use of technology in and out of the classroom.

Please send 250-500 word abstracts and all other inquiries to film.ufl@gmail.com by December 15, 2014. Please include a brief biography or CV with your abstract.

The conference will be held February 19-22, 2015