5C Film & Media Studies Undergraduate Conference

The 5C Film and Media Studies Undergraduate Conference is designed to build community among students studying film and media on each of the five campuses, to give our most engaged students an opportunity to hone their presentation skills, and to allow them to share insights from their work with a wider audience. Participants will each give a 15-minute presentation as part of a panel with 2-3 fellow students working on related themes (the organizers will assemble these panels). Each panel will include time for questions and discussion. This is a standard format for academic conferences in the humanities and social sciences, so the experience will offer an additional benefit for participants who are considering graduate school. Although we are using a formal structure, the conference will be focused on providing a friendly, supportive atmosphere for sharing ideas and meeting colleagues across the Five Colleges.

Participants present scholarly work they have done in and around Film and Media Studies over the course of their undergraduate career. This material might come from a final paper in a class, an independent study, or a senior thesis—even one that will still be in progress at the time of the conference. Submissions may be on any form of media (film, television, radio, video games, podcasts, Internet media, etc.) and may utilize a variety of approaches (textual analysis, historical studies, explorations of archiving and curating, critical interventions presented in a creative format such as a videographic essay or digital platform, etc.). Please note, however, that this is not a venue for showing student films and other forms of media production (consider submitting to the 5C Student Film and Video Festival instead).

The 2024 Conference will be held at Smith College. 

Conference Applications
  • A one-day in-person conference to be held on Saturday February 17, 2024 

  • Organized by Jen Malkowski (Film and Media Studies, Smith) and Hannah Goodwin (Film and Media Studies, Mount Holyoke) for the Five College Film Council

    To Submit an Application, by Friday January 5:

    Please fill out the google form which will request all of the following information:

    • Your name, school, year, major, and email address
    • An abstract of 250-300 words
      • Your abstract should deliver a succinct, well-written, and self-contained preview of the work you’ll be presenting. Strong abstracts describe what text(s) the presentation will be about, but spend more time on the presenter’s analysis of the text(s) and feature a clear argument. Be sure to include a descriptive title at the top. Email erueschmann@hampshire.edu if you’d like to see a sample abstract.
    • A brief bio of 100-150 words
      • This is a professional, rather than personal, bio. In it you may describe your interest in Film and Media Studies, topics in the discipline that you find most compelling, anything notable you’ve worked on, and/or your career ambitions after graduation.

 

Last year's Conference Program at UMass-Amherst.

Saturday, February 18, 2023:


Panel I: (Re)Defining Genres
Cas Keteyian (HC), “Superheroes and American Politics: Nationalism and Masculinity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe”
Olivia Zindren (SC), “From Bam to Bloodbath: An Exploration of increased Violence and militarism in superhero films and television”
Levi Ebnit (HC), “Jews, Sex, Money and Nazis: Cabaret as Thriller”
Mina Enayati-Uzeta (AC), “Redefining the Homefront: Diasporic Reclamation of Horror and Morality in A Girl Who Walks Alone at Night”


Panel 2: Gender in Film and Video Games
Linh Ngoc Bui (MHC), “A Queer Direction: Reading (Dis)Orientation and Disidentification in Richard Fung’s Chinese Characters through Sara Ahmed and Jose Munoz”
Linea Kay (SC), “Beyond the Slasher: An Exploration of the Folk Horror Final Girl”
Pei Pei Martin (AC), “The Objectification of Two Princesses: Mangan’s Sister and the Damsel in Distress”
Devyn Moore (SC), “The Complexities of Cinematic Mothers and Daughters” 12:30-1:30pm Lunch
 

Panel 3: Television: Space, Spectatorship and Disability
Sophie Caldwell (AC), “Is this thing on? Narrative Self-Reflexivity in Jane the Virgin”
Woodlief McCabe (MHC), “The Crystal in the Desert: Breaking Bad uses Albuquerque to its Fullest Extent”
Vanessa Ellis (SC), “Disability: The Unrecognized Backbone of the Survival Genre”
Shirley Fu (AC), “Impact of Streaming on Viewing Practices: Unbelievable”


Panel 4: Bodies, Identities and Performance in Filmic Space
Ian Shaw (UM), “The Reanimated Body as Artifice: Taxidermy, Temporality and Spectatorship in Experimental Film”
Taz Kim (AC), “Performance, Characterization and Race: Use of Diegetic Sound in Imitation of Life and Kiss Me Deadly”
Emilia Tamayo (SC), “Visualizing Space of Non-Place in Japanese Brazilian Film and Television”