News/Research

BCNM at SCMS 2020

20 Feb, 2020

BCNM at SCMS 2020

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies' annual conference takes place this year April 1-5, 2020 in Denver. We are so pleased to have such an incredible contingent representing BCNM at this forum. The conference seeks to promote the field of cinema and media studies among its practitioners, to other disciplines, and to the public at large, in part through public recognition of award-worthy achievements and other significant milestones in the field.

This year our Designated Emphasis students Miyoko Conley will join faculty Jacob Gaboury, Nicholaus Gutierrez and Renee Pastel, and alumni Alenda Chang, Kris Fallon, Bonnie Ruberg, and Chris Goetz in presenting their work.

Read on below for the incredible panels you can attend!

Trusting the Image: Truth and Trauma

Chair: Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University
Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University, Expanding the True Crime Gaze: Ava DuVernay's When They See Us (2019)
Kelsey Moore, University of California, Santa Barbara, The Horror of the Swallow’s Nest: Detainment and Intergenerational Trauma in The Terror: Infamy
Sarah Choi, York University, Reanimating Lifeless Spaces and Time: An In-Depth Analysis of Cinematic Taxidermy in Roma (2018) and Get Out (2017)
Renee Pastel, University of California, Berkeley, Fact-Checking Fiction: Historical “Fake News,” Assumptions of Knowledge, and Second-Screen Viewing

Ridiculous and Absurd: Exploring Contemporary Transnational Parodies

Chair: Thais Miller, University of California, Santa Cruz
Co-Chair: Miyoko Conley, University of California, Berkeley
Thais Miller, University of California, Santa Cruz, Historic Irony and Post-Colonial Guilt: Parody, Self-Deprecating Humor, Activism, & Apology in Au service de la France
Miyoko Conley, University of California, Berkeley, Romancing the Night Away: Dating Game Parodies, Queerness, and Transnational Asian Media
Jonathan Branfman, College of William and Mary, Jewy/Screwy Leading Lady: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and the Critique of Rom-Com Femininity
Takeo Rivera, Boston University, ClickHole and the Parody of the Bio-Political Regime of Inspiration

New Media’s Circulating Resources: Design and Control from Corporations to Individuals


Chair: Nicholaus Gutierrez, University of California, Berkeley
Kyle Bickoff, University of Maryland, Docker Containerization: The Acceleration of Crude Oil and Capital through Virtual Containers
Jamie Kirtz, Simon Fraser University, Run, Don’t Walk: The FitBit, Health Discourse and User Deep Mining
Nicholaus Gutierrez, University of California, Berkeley, The High Cost of Hyperreality: Economizing Immersive Experience in the 90's-Era Homebrew VR
Logan Blizzard, University of Pittsburgh, Beyond Storage Media: Design Intentions and Resistant Uses of the 5 ¼” Floppy Disk

Re-Animating the Archive Roundtable: Queer Theories of Computing


Chair: Scott Richmond, University of Toronto
Shaka McGlotten, SUNY, Purchase, Black+Queer Data: Capture, Evasion, Occlusion
Paige Treebridge, DePaul University, Queering Social Engineering
Whitney Pow, Northwestern University, c://Folder/File: A Trans of Color Computer History
Jacob Gaboury, University of California, Berkeley, On Uncomputable Numbers

Queer Embodiment in Video Games: Erotic Encounters with Computational Technologies


Chair: Bonnie Ruberg, University of California, Irvine
Bonnie Ruberg, University of California, Irvine, Queer Physics: The Gendered and Sexual Implications of How Video Games Move
Arianna Gass, University of Chicago, Real-time Reflections and Collision Boxes: Embodiment and Sexuality Beyond Representation
Josef Nguyen, University of Texas at Dallas, Robots, Sex Games, and Queer Processes of Embodying Autonomy
Kara Stone, University of California, Santa Cruz, Playing with Nature: Game Design and Queer Environmentalism

Seeing Within and Beyond the Body: Transcending the Corporeal in Global Film and Media


Chair: Fareed Ben-Youssef, Texas Tech University
Fareed Ben-Youssef, Texas Tech University, Visibility as a Trap for the Police and the Policed: Drones as Weapons in State of Emergency Banlieue Cinema
Marianne Tarcov, University of Notre Dame, “All That’s Hers is Her Eyeballs, Ears, Nails, and Pussy": The Body and Idol Culture in Ninagawa Mika’s Helter Skelter
Rebecca Ehrenwirth, Trier University Inbetween-ness of Queer Bodies: Disabled Gender in Contemporary China
Christopher Goetz, University of Iowa, A Poetics of Scale in Cinema and Video Games

Boundlessness Across Media


Chair: Erika Balsom, King's College London
Kristopher Fallon, University of California, Davis, A Stitch in Space: Algorithmic Image Stitching and Perspectival Boundlessness
Erika Balsom, King's College London, Wang Bing’s 15 Hours and the Chimera of Endlessness
Mary Ann Doane, University of California, Berkeley, Seriality, Addiction, and Temporality
Tess Takahashi, Independent Scholar, Big Data and Documentary Magnitude: Endlessness and Immediacy in Fukushima

Working Conditions: Labor and Materiality in Games


Chair: Jeff Watson, University of Southern California
Jeff Watson, University of Southern California, Surveillance and the “Play Chain"
Alenda Chang, University of California, Santa Barbara, Is Weather a Spoilsport? A Thermodynamic Theory of Play
John Vanderhoef II, California State University, Dominguez Hills, The Writer Will Do Something: Exploring the Labor Conditions and Creative Affordances of Video Game Writers
Aaron Trammell, University of California, Irvine, Reviewing Utopia: The Digital Labor of Analog Game Reviews