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Independent filmmakers Nancy Savoca and Rich Guay discuss their work with Mark Kligerman's SAC 455 (American Independent Cinema) class via Skype.
THIS WEEK'S EVENTS
SAC Speaker Series Presents
A Talk by Doctoral Candidate Josh Morrison: "Camp Labour: Productive Violence, Queers Bashing Back, and the Cine-Fist"
Friday, February 5, 2016 
SAC Conference Room (6360), North Quad 
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Image from Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives
(Israel Luna, 2010)
In this working talk, Josh Morrison will outline the larger theoretical framework of his dissertation, "Excess Labour, Excessive Consumption: A Theory of Loving Media, Useless Use Value, and Queer Cultural Capital." Each chapter of his dissertation reframes a media genre or aesthetic style as a form of queer labour and rethinks key terms in materialist theories of value. Josh will focus on chapter three of his dissertation, on camp as labour, and how queers and transfolk consume "bad" media as a way to communally ameliorate the affective traumas of living under capitalism, especially in Israel Luna's controversial film Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives (2010). He will finish with a tentative discussion of the links between exploitation and queer consumptive labour.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
#UMBLACKOUT Symposium 
Thursday, February 11, 2016 
Assembly Hall, 4th Floor Rackham Graduate School
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
In honor of Black History Month, the #UMBlackout: Mobilizing Black Communities for Radical Transformation in the Digital Age symposium invites your participation in a working session about contemporary black activist leadership for transformative change through digital forums. Through workshops, lectures, and a panel discussion, a wide variety of scholars and campus and grassroots organizers will engage in diverse reflections about the role of the internet in social change efforts through strategic mobilization. Join us in a collective discussion to advance discourse and direct action in community practice in the digital age. 
Latino Americans: 500 Years of History - A Series of 
Films, Lectures, and Discussions Hosted by Colin Gunckel
February 16 - March 21 (complete schedule below)
Ypsilanti District Library
Free and open to the public 
Screenings of PBS Documentary Series: This landmark film series explores how Latino/as shaped America. All screenings begin at 6:30 p.m.
Foreigners in Their Own Land (Tuesday, Feb. 16)
Empire of Dreams (Monday, Feb. 22)
War and Peace (Monday, Feb. 29)
The New Latinos (Monday, March 7)
Prejudice and Pride (Monday, March 14)
Peril and Promise (Monday, March 21)
Related Discussions with Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel: 
Zoot Suit Riots (Thursday, March 3, 6:30 p.m.)
Explore the complicated racial tensions that led to the famous riots in Los Angeles in 1943.
Civil Disobedience (Wednesday, March 16, 6:30 p.m.)
Learn how art and activism influenced each other in 1970s Latino/a culture. 
TUNING IN TO WOLV TV
WOLV TV's Newsfeed Focuses on Flint 
This past week, WOLV TV’s Newsfeed was fortunate enough to have two U-M faculty members make guest appearances on the show to discuss the water crisis in Flint. Terese Olson and Glen Daigger are engineering professors focused in Environmental Engineering and Engineering Practices, respectively. Alongside Newsfeed’s Stacy Chen, the professors discussed the cause of the Flint water crisis and who it has affected. WOLV TV was very excited to invite them on-air to discuss an issue that hits close to home, with Ann Arbor situated only 50 miles from where this crisis is happening. Newsfeed appreciates their high level of expertise since it is their mission to do their best to help inform others with accurate and in-depth information. Newsfeed notes that one of the most interesting facts they learned from the professors is that it was not necessarily created by the current socio-economic status of Flint; the crisis is a problem that any city could face. To watch the episode about the Flint water crisis, visit WOLVTV.org, and view Newsfeed: Episode 2 on the front page rotation. 
Writer Credit - Karen Brownman and Julie Fassnacht
SPOTLIGHT ON SAC ALUMNI 
  photo credit - SAC Alum Hena Ashraf

UM SAC Alum Sultan Sharrief (right) meets with his "Sundance Ignite" mentee Miles from Chelsea, NY, (left) at the Sundance Film Festival to discuss "how to pitch."  
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED PHOTO
photo credit - Mary Lou Chlipala 

SAC and Musicology graduate students gather in Watkins Hall as Chair and Professor of Musicology Charles Garrett introduces University of Michigan Press/Michigan Publishing's Editorial Director, Mary Francis (at front, left).  As part of the SAC Speaker Series, Francis delivered a talk entitled, "Successful Scholarly Publishing: What All Authors Need to Know" on Friday, January 29th.
 
NEWS
Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel's Mexico on Main Street Reviewed in Film Quarterly
Gunckel's book Mexico on Main Street was favorably reviewed in Film Quarterly (Winter 2015, vol. 69, no. 2) by Laura Isabel Serna, Associate Professor of Critical Studies in USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Serna comments on Gunckel's work: "One of the most impressive contributions this book makes to the field of film and media studies is its reminder that film and film culture exist in relation to broader cultural and social configurations such as immigration. Theater can adapt or compete with film, films can address diverse audiences in radically different ways, and film culture can include a broader complex of entertainment activities in which the activities of going to the movie theater are always embedded as they were on North Main Street so many years ago." 
SAC Faculty Spotlight: Associate Professor Matthew Solomon
The paper that Matthew Solomon presented at the department colloquium series last April, and in a longer version in Prague last May, “Méliès and the Materiality of Modern Magic,” will be published in German and Czech translations, respectively, later this year and early next year. In March, Solomon will present more of his ongoing research on Méliès at the Smithsonian. Méliès also makes frequent appearances in Solomon's SAC 236 (Art of Film) course, which he is in the process of renovating with the help of numerous useful suggestions from veteran SAC 236 graduate student instructors Yuki Nakayama, Richard Mwakasege-Minaya, and Katy Peplin, forthcoming guest lectures by Jim Burnstein (on story) and Terri Sarris (on dance), the invaluable addition of Frank Beaver's Dictionary of Film Terms (5th edition) as a required textbook, and the support of the LSA Large Course Initiative.
SAC Graduate Student Spotlight: Doctoral Student Vincent Longo
Vincent Longo is a first year PhD student in the SAC department. Despite a busy course load consisting of Material Practices and Historiography—both in film and in cultural history, he cannot seem to stop working on an assortment of side projects. As a part of the UM Library’s Mini-Grant Program, Vincent is creating a series of animated visualizations depicting the six missing film sequences from Orson Welles’s 1946 Broadway musical Around the World and their combination with live performance. Each visualization will be made by animating digital images of actual archival materials from the Special Collections Library. In addition, he is organizing a traveling art exhibition of Welles’s paintings, drawings, and doodles. In contrast to his films, plays, and his public persona, Welles preferred to keep most of his visual art private, only sharing it with friends and family, if at all. The exhibit will make what was once private, public in order to demonstrate visual art’s vital role in Welles’s creative process, his self-representation, and in maintaining his personal relationships.
SAC Students: Are You Considering an Internship? 
Come to the SAC Internship Panel Sponsored by SAC and the FVSA!
On Friday, February 12, from 4:00-5:30 in North Quad, Studio A, a  panel of SAC students who have interned in LA, New York, and other locales will talk about how they found their internships, how they found housing, and what they did during their internships. If you are thinking about pursuing an internship and have questions, we would love to see you there!