By Mary Francis, Executive Editor, Cinema & Media Studies
What’s new? That is always the biggest question in an editor’s mind going to big annual conference (right up there with, where can I get a really good espresso?*). As a publisher, there is nothing more gratifying than having a colleague approach our exhibit table with that question. And this year was a doozy for us, with a hot-of-the-press number of Film Quarterly, a new sibling in the journals family, Feminist Media Histories, a set of great interviews with media industry insiders, new translations of Bazin, stellar new books on film sound, cinema and the Parisian avant-garde, amateur film, cinematography, ‘lens and screen arts,’ the life and work of Lois Weber, and much more.
As the publisher who wants to bring more of “what’s new?” to the world the Society for Cinema and Media Studies is a feast of timely possibilities: we are all steeped in audio-visual media every day, and SCMS is a great place to learn about, and understand the many ways that our lives are influenced and affected by it all. As a representative of a progressive university press, always looking for work that explores what it means to be an engaged citizen, this year’s program offered plenty of enticing possibilities: a plethora of ways to understand the performances and genres we consume on screen; grapples with newest ways (legal or not, free or not) to access moving image content; rich introductions to the cutting-edge moving image work in galleries; the in’s and out’s of media industries around the world; thought-provoking work on how and why what we watch is (and isn’t) regulated and controlled and by whom. It was great to see so many panels that addressed teaching: there was a lot of energy dedicated to talking about the best ways to introduce students to great films, to great texts, to important concepts about media literacy, to raise awareness of active and intelligent consumption.
*My answer this year: http://tunnelespresso.ca/
