Film and Media scholars rely on copyrighted material for teaching and research, and SCMS has a long history of defending fair use in the U.S. The Society has recently participated as a friend of the court (amicus curiae) on behalf of our members in a fair use appeal.

In the 1980s, John Belton represented the Society before the Copyright Office of the United States when it considered expanding the authorial rights of film directors. In 1993, a committee led by Kristen Thompson drafted a report that made the case that fair use permitted reproductions of films stills in academic work. That document was adopted as policy by many university presses, and permitted decades of well-documented books and articles by media scholars. A decade and a half later, SCMS's public policy committee wrote a new statement, identifying fair use best practices in film and media teaching and publication. In 2006, Society member Peter Decherney successfully argued for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, making it legal for media professors to make clips from DVDs for teaching. SCMS submitted a letter of support, and in 2009 and 2012 the Society joined Peter and others to expand the exemption to encompass students, educators in all fields, and documentary and noncommercial filmmakers.

This April 2013, SCMS joined another effort to protect educational fair use and signed onto an amicus brief in the 11th Circuit Court of appeals. Academic publishers Cambridge, Oxford, and Sage all sued Georgia State University over its e-reserve practices, i.e. making teaching materials available though courseware. The university won a big victory in the first round of the case. The district court found that 70 of 75 examples under question were clearly not infringing. The material was used for education and the amounts assigned were small. It was a triumph, but the decision was also overly narrow. Represented by the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic, SCMS joined the American Association of University Professors, the Modernist Studies Association, and University of Pennsylvania professors Peter Decherney and Tsitsi Jaji to argue that course reserves can also be "transformative." As many courts, including the Supreme Court, have held, even the use of entire works can be protected by fair use when the purpose of the use is different than the originally intended purpose. When works made by the entertainment industry, for example, are used for teaching, comment, and criticism, they are likely to be fair uses. Briefs by academic authors and library associations made very similar points.

This is a case that affects everyone teaching film and media. Arguments are expected to take place in late May, and a decision will follow. We will update you as soon as we learn of any decision. In the meantime, because we know how vital such issues are to our members, we want to keep you informed of our work on your behalf.

Some of us had the pleasure and privilege of working closely with Elspeth, who was not only a loving daughter, sister and friend, but also a talented filmmaker and film and television scholar who made a vital contribution to our field. Her book The Critical Practice of Film (Palgrave, 2011) will be used to teach practice to film studies students and film studies to practical students for years to come. Her numerous articles on questions of race, passing, miscegenation and diaspora in everything from her own experimental film ("Looking for Home in Home Movies" in The Cinema of Me, Wallflower, 2012) to The X-Files and Star Trek ("Differences: The X-Files and the White Norm,"Journal of Film and Video, 2002, and "Star Trek's Allegorical Monomyth,"Jump Cut, 2011) indicate her wide range of interests and knowledge.

Fortunately for us, Elspeth not only wrote and published, but also left us her most recent film,a beautiful first person musing entitled Stone Street (2012), completed in the midst of her illness. Stone Street premiered in the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2012 and took home the ACP Cultures prize. Her previous films (made with Gabriel Gomez) include Lick Bush in ’92 (1993) and Drag In for Votes (1991). We celebrate the life of an extraordinarily talented, soft spoken, dedicated and supportive colleague and friend.

Contributed by Dr. Alisa Lebow
Brunel University, London

Call for Committee Service
SCMS is a member-run organization, and service to our profession remains critical to the ongoing health of our field and to our scholarly organization. Serving on an SCMS committee is an excellent way to network with other members and to provide vital service to the organization. Descriptions for standing, annual, and award committees (below) are provided on the SCMS website under About Us.

Standing Committees: Information Technologies, Media Archive, Nominating, Professional Development, Public Policy, Teaching, Translation

Annual Committees: Conference Host and Conference Program

Award Committees: Anne Friedberg Award for Innovative Scholarship, Best First Book, Best Edited Collection, Best Essay in an Edited Collection, Dissertation, Distinguished Career Achievement, Kovács Book, Kovács Essay, Pedagogy, Student Writing Award

There will be vacancies on the following committees beginning July 1: Professional Development, Teaching, Distinguished Career Achievement Award, Public Policy, Nominating, Translation, Conference Program, Dissertation, Kovács Book, Kovács Essay, Student Writing, Pedagogy, Anne Friedberg, Best First Book, Best Edited Collection, and Best Essay in an Edited Collection awards committees.

To volunteer to serve on a committee, please contact the SCMS Office (office@cmstudies.org) or volunteer through the SCMS website: http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=Volunteer_service.

The names and affiliations of the volunteers will be forward to the SCMS Board of Directors for review and approval. The SCMS Office staff will notify members selected for committee services in June.

• To be able to submit an announcement, individuals must be registered users (either as a member or a temporary member) of the SCMS website.

• All chairs/organizers must notify individuals of acceptance or rejection by August 15, 2013.

• Individuals whose submissions are accepted for an advertised panel or workshop must provide the required information for completion of the proposal forms to the chair/organizer by August 23, 2013, 5pm CT.

• When creating your proposal, do not include more than two individuals from the same institution.

• Panels should have a chair and four presenters or a chair, three presenters, and one respondent. Workshops should have a chair and at least four participants, but no more than five (excluding the chair or co-chairs).

2014 Conference Bulletin Board

We hope you enjoyed your time at the 2013 Chicago Conference. We would appreciate your feedback, as we are already thinking towards next year’s 2014 Seattle Conference. Please take a few moments to answer the following questions.

Complete the survey by 5pm on May 1, 2013, and you will be entered into a drawing for a free membership renewal for the 2013-2014 membership year!

Note: To submit the survey, you will need to answer every question, but please feel free to type in N/A for questions you do not wish to answer. While including your contact information with the survey submission is optional, you must include your contact information if you would like to be entered into the drawing.

New Publishers’ Discounts
SCMS is pleased to announce three new additions to our year-round publisher discount program: Indiana University Press (offering 30% off on all titles), New York University Press (offering 20% off media and cultural studies titles), and University of Minnesota Press (offering 30% off film and media titles). Visit our publisher discount page (you need to be signed in to do so) for the discount codes and links to these presses’ websites.

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is proud to announce its support for a new venture, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Undergraduate Conference. Previously conducted under the title of the Midwest Undergraduate Film and Television Conference and held only at the University of Notre Dame, this new incarnation will rotate across multiple universities on an annual basis, so as to enable wider access to students across North America. It will carry the SCMS imprimatur to reflect the organization’s strong support for undergraduate education in cinema and media studies.

We ask that you tell your best undergraduate students about the First Annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies Undergraduate Conference. It will be once again held at the University of Notre Dame on April 12-13, 2013. Next year it will move to the University of Oklahoma.

Undergraduate students are invited to propose papers appropriate for a 20-minute presentation on any aspect of cinema and media history, criticism, or theory. Interested students must submit a proposal form, which can be found at http://ftt.nd.edu/ftt-events/society-for-cinema-and-media-studies-undergraduate-conference/.

Completed proposals should be sent by email to JoAnn.Norris.9@nd.edu at the University of Notre Dame. Please write "SCMS Undergrad Conference 2013" in the subject heading.

The deadline for proposals is Midnight EST on Monday, February 4, 2013. Questions about the conference should be directed to Christine Becker at cbecker1@nd.edu.

It is with profound sadness that we report the death of Alexander Doty, who passed away on August 5, 2012 after being struck by a motorcycle while on vacation in Bermuda. He was 58 years old.

In 2008 Alex became Professor of Gender Studies and Communication and Culture at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was Chair of the Department of Communication and Culture at the time of his death. His joint membership in both departments allowed Alex to bring his interests in film and media and LGBTQ studies harmoniously together and he very quickly created a vibrant community of students and colleagues devoted to him and his work. As he often noted, he was excited to be affiliated with the university that had supported Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey’s pioneering work in sexuality studies and was especially honored to become a member of the Kinsey Institute’s Board of Trustees once he joined the faculty. He previously taught at the American University in Cairo, The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and at Cornell University (where he held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Society for the Humanities) before working for many years at Lehigh University, where he also served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Chair of the Department of English.

Alex was born in a military hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts, and after moving about in an "Army brat” childhood he later likened to a theatrical road show, his family settled in west Texas, where Alex eventually received his B.A. in English with highest honors from the University of Texas-El Paso. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he wrote a dissertation on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940s films under the supervision of Robert Carringer.

Alex was the author of two influential books, Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture (Minnesota, 1993), and Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon (Routledge, 2000), as well as numerous essays on topics including queer authorship, Hollywood stars, and queer representation in mainstream media. He also edited two special issues of Camera Obscura on divas (2007 and 2008), and co-edited (with Corey K. Creekmur) Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Essays on Popular Culture (Duke, 1995). He served on the editorial board of many journals, including Camera Obscura, The Quarterly Review of Film and Video, The Velvet Light Trap, and GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies. Among the first generation of "male feminist” and gay film scholars to embrace and elaborate the theoretical implications of "queerness,” in his work and teaching Alex not only embraced alternative challenges to mainstream media from queer artists, but located queerness at the heart of mainstream culture through his dazzlingly original readings of seemingly heteronormative films and television programs.

A longtime member of SCS and SCMS, one of Alex’s most notable contributions to the organization was as a founder and chair or co-chair (1990-1991 and 1998-2000) of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus (now Queer Caucus). In addition to vibrant leadership and advocacy that led to the regular visibility of queer scholarship within SCMS, Alex was an enthusiastic participant in the Queer Caucus mentorship program that paired senior and junior scholars.

Alex leaves behind a vast network of friends, colleagues, and students who have been empowered by his work and inspired by his personal example: he was an exceptionally generous scholar and person, whose research and activism were deeply intertwined. He will also be remembered for his campy (but rarely caustic) wit, his fabulous sense of what he called (after Stella Dallas) "stacks of style,” and his outstanding ability to balance the pleasures of popular culture alongside rigorous, politically engaged analysis.

Call for Pedagogy Award Nominees Remember that professor who inspired you to go to graduate school, the one who made film theory and methodology seem interesting, or the mentor who kept you on track through grad school? All SCMS members (regular, student, and institutional) are encouraged to nominate outstanding teachers in cinema and media studies for the annual SCMS Pedagogy Award. Nominations for winners of college and university teaching awards are especially encouraged. The award winner receives a plaque and $500 at the annual conference, as well as promotion on the SCMS website. Important Details and Dates: Nominee must be a full member of the Society for the 2012-2013 membership year. Nominators must complete the online nomination form by August 1, 2012. Nominees must accept or decline the nomination by September 3, 2012 If the nominee accepts the nomination, the nominator must provide a statement summarizing the nominee’s accomplishments and an overview of the dossier. A copy of the nominee’s dossier must be sent to the SCMS Office by November 2, 2012. The winner will be announced at the SCMS conference in Chicago, IL, March 6-10, 2013. To submit a nominee, go to: https://cmstudies.site-ym.com/?pedagogy_award_form

The 2011-2012 SCMS membership year ends August 31, 2012 (11:59pm CST). The SCMS membership year runs from September 1-August 31, regardless of when one joins. Please make sure your membership profile is up to date in order to continue receiving Cinema Journal, SCMS news briefs, updates, and announcements and to access to the website.

Your access to the website will expire on August 31, 2012 (11:59pm CST), if you do not renew your membership by this date. NOTE: Please remember to login to the website before you begin to renew your membership.

Memberships in SCMS Groups SCMS members are encouraged to become involved in our various groups in order to network and collaborate with other members with similar interests. Our Caucuses were formed to provide support and advocacy for members historically under-represented within the Society and the academy based on marginal social status. The Scholarly Interest Groups have been formed to facilitate communication and collaboration among members working in a specific area of cinema and media studies. The Graduate Student Organization provides fellowship, support, and advocacy for the Society’s student members. Members can join as many of our groups as they like. To join a Caucus, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=caucuses, and then click on "Members’ Caucus Group Page/Join Now” for the Caucus of interest. To join a Scholarly Interest Group, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=scholar_interst_gr, and then click on "SIG Members’ Group Page/Join Now” for the SIG of interest. To join the Graduate Student Organization, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/members/group.asp?id=60572, and click on "Join Group.”

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Few working film critics have had the impact on the development of the discipline film studies as Sarris, whose 1962 Film Culture essay "Notes on the Auteur Theory” and 1968 book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 followed the lead of the young French critics of Cahiers du Cinéma by championing the directors – elevated as "auteurs” -- who had worked in the commercial Hollywood studio system.  The American Cinema -- "surely the most audacious, influential and glorious single volume in U.S. film history,” according to Time magazine critic Richard Corliss, who took classes from Sarris at NYU – became the Bible of college film societies and launched heated debates over the ranking of specific figures within Sarris’ "whimsical” categories, as well as general questions of authorship that continue to animate both academic film studies and the popular understanding of cinema.   One measure of Sarris’s impact can be traced in the continual scholarly attention to filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, or Alfred Hitchcock after Sarris placed them in his "pantheon” of directors "with a personal vision of the world.”

Sarris served as an associate editor of Film Culture (1955-1965) and editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinéma in English (1965-1967), and Sarris eventually published and edited many more books, including one of the first extended studies of John Ford.  However, he was best-known for his regular reviews for the NY Film Bulletin and especially for The Village Voice, beginning in 1960 with a then-audacious defense of Hitchcock’s Psycho; between 1989 and 2009, he wrote reviews for the New York Observer, continually demonstrating a range of interests – including a lifelong devotion to French cinema – that extended well beyond the classical Hollywood films he helped to legitimate for film studies.

The Society is a member of the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW). I serve as the SCMS representative to this group. Yesterday CAW released the findings of the 2010 survey on part-time faculty members. The report is available on the CAW website at http://www.academicworkforce.org. There is also an article about the report in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/article/Study-Paints-Portrait-of/132421/?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en). I think this will be of great interest to all SCMS members.

Sincerely,

Patrice Petro
Past President, Society for Cinema & Media Studies
Vice Provost for International Education
Professor of English, Film Studies, and Global Studies
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Content:

1. Message from the President

2. Call for Proposals for the 2013 Chicago Conference

3. Conference Bulletin Board Reminder

4. Message from SCMS’ New Web Content Manager

1.  Message from the President

Dear SCMS Members,

In recent years, the scope of SCMS services has expanded greatly. The costs to provide those services and benefits to members have grown substantially. Since 2007, SCMS has grown by one-third to over 3,200 members; the number of funded scholarly interest groups has more than doubled to twenty; and the number of travel grant applications has jumped along with mailing costs. As a result, SCMS has outgrown both its volunteer leadership structure, its current levels of office staff, and conference and IT/web support. In response to these realities, SCMS has added a part-time Web Content Manager position, is increasing staff support in the Home Office, and will increase travel grant awards by over fifty percent for the 2013 conference. The Board of Directors is also in the early stages of exploring the feasibility of establishing a paid Executive Director who would report to the Board, lead the staff, and manage the organization’s operations.

At the 2012 Members’ Business Meeting in Boston, it was announced that SCMS would be examining its current dues structure by conducting a comparison study with twenty-five other learned societies in the humanities. The results showed SCMS dues for individual members based in the U.S. are far below any comparison group average in most salary categories and below the average in every category. In order to serve our growing membership effectively, the SCMS Board of Directors therefore voted unanimously at its May meeting to make the following dues changes for the 2012-2013 membership year:

Income Membership Fee

15K or less $55
16K-35K $65
36-55K $100
56K-75K $120
76K-100K $150
More than100K $180

If you are a U.S. member you will see these new membership dues categories when you renew your membership this year. The Board will review international dues categories in the near future.

Please know that even with these modest changes, SCMS dues remain below the average of our peer organizations in the humanities.

Sincerely, and on behalf of the SCMS Board,

Chris Holmlund
President, Society for Cinema and Media Studies

2. Chicago 2013 Call for Paper, Panel, and Workshop Proposals

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies announces its call for paper, panel, and workshop proposals for the 2013 conference to be held Wednesday, March 6 through Sunday, March10 at the Drake Hotel.

The Chicago area is home to some of our most important and distinguished programs in film, television, and media studies, including Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1980, more than 750 feature films and television productions have been made in Chicago and, both in size and recognition, Chicago’s own independent film community is the fastest growing segment of the industry.

The 2013 SCMS Conference Program Committee welcomes quality paper, panel, and workshop proposals on any topic related to cinema and media studies for the 2013 SCMS Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

You may access the Conference submission pages of our website here:  Submission Forms.

Please Note:New proposal submission deadline: August 31, 2012 at 5pm Central Time. All paper proposers who are not currently SCMS members must be registered as temporary members no later than August 31, 2012 (4pm CT). (All temporary memberships must be approved before a proposal can be submitted.)

Waiver Requests

A fee waiver for conference registration fees and/or membership fees may be granted in exceptional circumstances for artists or renowned scholars from other disciplines or filmmakers whose contributions would illuminate the panel or workshop topic. If chairs or organizers will be requesting a waiver for any panel or workshop participants, a fee waiver form (ONE waiver request per submission form) must be submitted online by August 31, 2012 (5pm CT).

Note: Open Call Participants/Graduate Students do not qualify for these waivers. Information about travel grants for graduate students is available here.

If the conference program chair approves the waiver, the organizer of the panel or workshop along with the individual receiving the waiver will receive an e-mail notification from the SCMS office before the registration deadline of January 7, 2013 (5pm CT).

The conference section of our website contains detailed guidelines and instructions for how to compose and submit proposals, as well as a lengthy FAQ section which will hopefully answer your questions.

We look forward to receiving your submissions for the 2013 SCMS Conference!


3. Chicago 2013 Bulletin Board Reminder

Members may post calls for papers or workshop presentations for the 2013 Chicago conference on the SCMS Bulletin Board now. The Bulletin Board submissions on the Forums page will close July 15, 2012. August 15, 2012 is the final day for session organizers to notify individuals that they have been accepted for a panel or workshop proposal. Proposal submission forms for the 2013 Chicago Conference will be available online beginning June 1 through August 31, 2012.


4. Message from SCMS’ New Web Content Manager, Aviva Dove-Viebahn

It's my pleasure and honor to take on the role of web content manager for SCMS, and I look forward to working with the Board and all the members in various capacities over the coming year. Please don't hesitate to contact me (through the Contact Us form on the website or at scms_web[at]yahoo[dot]com) if you have technical questions or issues. In the meantime, here are a few of the things I've been working on in my first few weeks:

The questions in the member profiles have been reconfigured and a couple new questions have been added. Please considering taking a few minutes to complete your profile, as the information you provide gives us a better sense of our membership and our members' needs, as well as serving as valuable groundwork for future research into state of the field of cinema and media studies.

In an effort to increase our social media outreach, SCMS has renewed its presence on Facebook and Twitter. Please consider 'liking' our page on Facebook (facebook.com/SCMStudies) and following us on Twitter @SCMStudies.

Best,

Aviva Dove-Viebahn
Website Content Manager

Paul Willemen embraced academic life relatively late, arriving at the University of Ulster at Coleraine in 1999 after a short spell at Napier University in Edinburgh. He had already built a formidable reputation within film studies. While working for the British Film Institute, he played a key role in the 1970s and 1980s, helping define the subject area in the UK and also helping to shape and mould the subject's theoretical terrain and institutional structures. These earlier years were characterized by his dual commitment to promoting a "cinephiliac” understanding of popular cinema – especially mainstream American cinema – and to promoting an understanding of alternative cinema in all its formal and political diversity. He is particularly remembered for proposing the notion of "Third Cinema” as a way of understanding political cinema.

Paul Willemen helped to illuminate a range of other theoretical pathways as well, including the concept of comparative film studies and the pleasures of and political contexts of the action film, especially in its heroic classical mode. He was vexed and intrigued by the concept of national cinema and his dissatisfaction with the "national” was the spur to his interest in comparative film studies. During this time he co-edited the influential collection Theorizing National Cinema, which joined prior seminal interventions including Questions of Third Cinema (1990) and Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory (1994). Paul Willemen's death has deprived us of one of the most accomplished and challenging intellects in our field.

SCMS notes with sadness the passing of Amos Vogel, a key figure in film education and exhibition in the United States. Vogel was co-founder of the New York Film Festival, creator of the influential avant-garde film club Cinema 16, and a pedagogue who taught film at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, The New School, and NYU, among other institutions. Deeply influential in the promotion of film culture, he championed/programmed the work of directors including Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes, Jacques Rivette, Maya Deren, and Kenneth Anger. Throughout his long career Vogel celebrated convention-breaking cinema, crusaded against censorship, and advocated for representational innovation. His activities as a proponent for a robust, international, and humane film culture were wide ranging, though he is best known to scholars for his 1974 book Film As A Subversive Art.  

Amos Vogel was a lifetime member of SCMS and a recipient of the Honorary Membership Award (now known as the Distinguished Career Achievement Award).  His active involvement in the Society of Cinematologists, the predecessor to what we know today as SCMS, included membership on the Council 1966-1969 and service on the Nominating Committee 1974-1975. 

Vogel’s exemplary commitment to the furthering of film education and his impact on film culture constitute important and valued legacies. He will be remembered for his manifold contributions to the thoughtful reflection about and appreciation of cinema. 

· Call for SCMS Committee Service

· Conference Bulletin Board

· March 23, 2012 Members' Business Meeting Minutes

CALL FOR COMMITTEE SERVICE

SCMS is a member-run organization, and service to our profession remains critical to the ongoing health of our field and to our scholarly organization. Serving on an SCMS committee is also an excellent way of networking with other members and providing vital service to the organization.

All members are encouraged to volunteer for service on one of our various committees:

- Standing Committees: Information Technologies, Media Archive, Nominating, Professional Development, Public Policy, Teaching, Translation/Publication

- Annual Committees: Conference Host, Conference Program, Conference Screening

- Award Committees: Anne Friedberg Award for Innovative Scholarship, Best First Book, Best Edited Collection, Best Essay in an Edited Collection, Dissertation, Distinguished Career Achievement, Kovács Book, Kovács Essay, Pedagogy, Student Writing.

All committees, committee descriptions, and current committee members are on the SCMS website under "About Us.”

If you are interested in volunteering to serve on a committee, please contact the SCMS Office (office@cmstudies.org), or volunteer for committee service through the SCMS website: http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=Volunteer_service

The names of volunteers will be forwarded to the SCMS Board of Directors for review and final approval. In July, the SCMS Office staff will notify individuals chosen to serve on committees.

CHICAGO 2013 BULLETIN BOARD

Members may post calls for papers or workshop presentations for the 2013 Chicago conference on the SCMS Bulletin Board now (https://cmstudies.site-ym.com/?page=ConfBBoard). The Bulletin Board submissions on the Forums page will close July 15, 2012. August 15, 2012 is the final day for session organizers to notify individuals that they have been accepted for a panel or workshop proposal. Proposal submission forms for the 2013 Chicago Conference will be available online beginning June 1 through August 31, 2012.

2012 SCMS MEMBERS’ BUSINESS MEETING MINUTES
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Statler Room
Boston, MA
March 23, 2012

I. Introduction

President Chris Holmlund called the meeting to order at 11:10 am. She welcomed all present and encouraged them to thank the SCMS staff (Jane Dye, Debbie Rush, and Leslie LeMond) for their outstanding work on the 2012 conference.

II. 2012 Elections

Holmlund thanked the people who are leaving the Board this year: Mary Kearney (Secretary); Diane Negra and Jacqueline Stewart (Executive Council members); Andrew Miller (IT Consultant), and Heather Hendershot (Cinema Journal Editor). Hendershot’s term ends December 31, 2012; all others end June 30, 2012. She also thanked the candidates who ran for the Board this year and were not elected: Marvin D’Lugo, Bob Rehak, and Eric Smoodin.

Holmlund announced that Corey Creekmur (University of Iowa) was elected Secretary, and Sean Griffin (Southern Methodist University) and Haidee Wasson (Concordia University) have been elected to the Executive Council. Their terms will begin July 1, 2012 and end June 30, 2015. Victoria Sturtevant, Director of the Film and Video Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma (where the SCMS Office is located) will join the Board on July 1, 2012, as an ex officio non-voting member. Will Brooker (Kingston University) will replace Hendershot as the new Cinema Journal editor on January 1, 2013. Last, she acknowledged the co-chairs of the Caucuses and Scholarly Interest Groups for their service, as well as those who served on the standing and annual committees this year.

III. Call for Service

Holmlund noted that SCMS is a member-run organization, and invited everyone to volunteer for service for the coming year. She encouraged members to support travel awards for graduate students and un-/under-employed members.

IV. Member Announcements

A. PBS Schedule

Pat Aufderheide made an announcement regarding PBS’sdecision to move the two premier strands of independent documentaries,Independent LensandPOV, from their established home on Tuesday nights to Thursday, a night on which local stations program locally-selected material. She encouraged members to follow the news and support the campaign launched by Kartemquin Films (kartemquin.com) to ask PBS to give these programs and other public-purpose programs proper showcasing.

B. Canyon Cinema

Scott MacDonald and Michael Renov made an announcement regarding the possible closing of Canyon Cinema, a major distributor of 16mm film. MacDonald and Renov appealed to members to speak to their home institutions regarding financial support for Canyon Cinema. Contact <smacdona@hamilton.edu> for more information.

V. Conference Notes

2012 Conference Program Committee Chair Mary Kearney noted that the 2012 Conference is our biggest yet. This year the conference was a day longer than last year, beginning on Wednesday. Over 1100 proposals were received, and those accepted were programmed into approximately 420 sessions.

Kearney reminded members that the 2013 conference will be held at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, IL, March 6-10, 2013, and announced that the location of the 2014 conference will be Seattle, WA. SCMS Conference Manager Leslie LeMond will soon begin the process of soliciting bids from hotels for the 2014 conference.

VI. Treasurer's Report

Treasurer Jim Castonguay presented his annual report, which included an overview of the Society’s income/revenue, expenses/costs, account balances, total assets, and membership numbers (by category) through March 1, 2012. He also presented conference attendance figures from 2000 to 2012, as well as conference attendance by job title for 2011. Additionally, he presented a 2008-2011 asset summary.

Castonguay discussed the Board’s desire to hire an Executive Director to improve administration of the Society and to bring SCMS in line with other peer organizations. He described other 2012-2015 plans and goals, as well, among them revising membership fees, generating surplus revenue, evaluating dues categories, increasing institutional memberships, stabilizing website costs, increasing conference sponsorship and advertising revenue, increasing SIG and Caucus funding, and increasing the number of travel grant awards.

VII. Website Report

President-Elect Barbara Klinger alerted members to web activity happening at the conference, including SCMS Live!, blogging, and tweeting.

She presented a brief report from the ad hoc Website Committee, which was assigned to review the SCMS Website in detail. She noted the forthcoming elimination of various pages that have long been under construction, as well as initiatives to enrich the teaching, research, and other resource areas of the website. Last, she discussed plans to partner with other associated websites, including ScreenSite.

VIII. International Outreach Report

Executive Council Member Diane Negra informed members of SCMS's new alliances with a variety of organizations related to film and media studies, including BAFTSS, Screen, and UFVA. Affiliated organizations are identified on the SCMS Website.

IX. Website Content Manager Position

IT Consultant Andrew Miller noted that the Board has finished the foundational work for the new website and explained that we now need to build the website for everyday use. The Board has created a new paid staff position, the Web Content Manager, beginning in late spring 2012. This position will replace the Information Technology Consultant. He invited members to apply, emphasizing that excellent communication skills are required. Applications are due April 2, 2012. Miller also briefly discussed conference web services and A/V costs.

X. Member Comments and Questions

A member asked the Board to comment on the financial aspects of the move toward hiring an Executive Director. Castonguay responded by discussing his research on staff at peer organizations.

A member asked if the Executive Director position will be attached to the SCMS Office, and if it will it be an appointed or elected position. Petro responded by discussing the Board’s strategic planning initiatives, and noted that the idea to hire an Executive Director emerged from those conversations. Castonguay added that more research is necessary for us to determine how and when the Society can institute this position. Holmlund explained that the Executive Director will be an appointed staff position.

A member asked about volunteering for the Program Committee. Holmlund answered by noting that members can volunteer for any of the standing, annual, or awards committees via the website or by emailing the SCMS Office.

A member asked about the length of committee service, noting some confusion with one of the committees this year. Petro responded that standing committee members serve 3-year terms; annual and most awards committee members serve one-year terms. Members of the Distinguished Career Achievement Award Committee serve three-year, staggered terms.

A member asked on behalf of the Caucus on Class if the Society's contractual agreements with hotels include provisions beyond what we normally think of as "acts of God,” such as natural disasters, war, or civil disturbancesto include union activity and picket lines. He noted that many members would not cross a picket line. Castonguay replied that we already have riders regarding this issue, and that we’ve been doing this for years. Petro added that the Society respects union activity. She also said that the Society has been involved in a major study of the status of the academic workforce,focusing specificallyon adjuncts and lecturers,as part of The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAWS). The Coalition willrelease its study (based on thousands of surveys, inwhich SCMS members also participated) sometime in April. Once that study is released, it will be posted on the SCMS website.

XI. Reminders

A. Post-Conference Survey

Holmlund clarified that in order to improve our conference each year, the SCMS Board and Office need feedback from members. A conference survey will be sent to members in the next few weeks.

B. New Members’ Orientation

Holmlund mentioned that one more New Members' Orientation session is scheduled at the conference from 2:15 – 4:00 pm on March 23, 2012, in the Statler Room.

C. Conference Evening Events

Holmlund reminded members that the Award Ceremony will be held March 23, 2012, from 4:15-5:30 pm in the Plaza Ballroom, followed by our gala reception from 5:30-7:30 pm in the Imperial Ballroom. The reception was made possible this year by Boston universities and colleges, as well as by SCMS.

Holmlund adjourned the meeting at 12 noon.

Minutes prepared by Mary Celeste Kearney.

The Board thanks Eric Smoodin, Bob Rehak, and Marvin D'Lugo for their willingness to stand for office and their ongoing service and commitment to the Society.

Thanks also to members of the Nominating Committee: Charles Wolfe (chair), Gilberto Blasini, Lucy Fischer, Krin Gabbard,Victoria Johnson, Brenda Weber, and Patty White.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who took the time to cast a ballot in this year's election.

Contents

1) Election Reminder

2) 2012 Conference Updates

a) New Member Orientations

b) New England Archive Showcases

c) Key Meetings and Events

1) Election Reminder

The 2012 Election is underway and ends Monday, February 13, 2012at 5:00 pm (CST).

The election is for the Secretary, two Executive Council members, and two SCMS Bylaws alterations.

Click here to vote: http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=ElectionInfo2012

2) 2012 Conference Updates

The 2012 SCMS conference in Boston will be largest in the organization’s history with over 1600 participants--surpassing the number of attendees at the 50th anniversary conference in Los Angeles.

a) New Member Orientations

Boston Park Plaza, Statler (second level)

Thursday March 22, 11 am - 12:45 pm, and Friday March 23, 2:15 to 4 pm

If you are new to SCMS, please plan to attend one of the two orientation sessions for new members. You will learn more about the Society, the conference, the journal, the website, and other benefits of membership.

To foster a spirit of welcoming collegiality to those coming to the conference for the first time, we established New Member Orientations last year in New Orleans. These sessions are designed to help those new to SCMS to navigate the conference, to get to know the players in the organization (the officers, the Board of Directors, representatives from Caucuses and Scholarly Interest Groups), and to extol the benefits and virtues of being an active member of SCMS. This year's orientation will also include representatives from the conference host committee, who can provide an insider's guide to the city of Boston. We encourage all new members to attend. We would also ask that all those who have colleagues and/or graduate students who are attending their first SCMS encourage them to come to the New Member Orientation.

b) New England Archive Showcases

Bright Family Screening Room, Emerson College’s Paramount Center

Thursday, March 22 and Friday, March 23 at various times

New England is home to several significant moving image archives. We are pleased to present a showcase of these archives for SCMS conference attendees. To this end, the 2012 conference will feature selections from the National Center for Jewish Film, WGBH Media Library and Archives, the Harvard Film Archive, and Northeast Historic Film. During each showcase representatives from the archives will be on hand to introduce a variety of clips, discuss their collections, and take questions from the audience. Drop by for an hour or stay for all of the presentations. Admission is with your SCMS conference badge.

c) Key 2012 Conference Meetings and Events

Mark your calendars! If you’ll be attending the SCMS conference in Boston, you won't want to miss these important meetings and special events.

THURSDAY, MARCH 22

7 – 10:30 pm

An Evening with Experimental Filmmaker Ernie Gehr

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge

The Visual and Environmental Studies Department and Harvard Film Archive will host a reception for all SCMS conference participants and a screening of new works by Ernie Gehr, which will be followed by a conversation with Ernie Gehr, VES Professor and Chair David Rodowick, and HFA Director Haden Guest. The reception is open to all SCMS conference participants. The screening is free to registered conference participants with your badge, but tickets are required. Tickets are available at the Harvard Film Archive box office (located in the basement of the Carpenter Center) on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 7 pm.

FRIDAY, MARCH 23

11 am - 12 noon

Members' Business Meeting

Boston Park Plaza & Towers, Statler (second level)

All SCMS members are encouraged to attend the annual Members' Business Meeting to learn more about SCMS and the Board’s strategic planning processes. Members will also meet the officers and Board members, the newly elected Secretary and Board members, and the leadership of the SCMS Caucuses and Scholarly Interest Groups.

4:15 - 5:30 pm

Awards Ceremony

Boston Park Plaza & Towers, Plaza Ballroom (second level)

Please help us to acknowledge and honor this year’s awards recipients. The Awards Ceremony will be followed by the Reception.

5:30 - 7:30 pm

Reception

Boston Park Plaza & Towers, Imperial Ballroom (second level)

8:15 – 10:30 pm

A Celebration of Women Make Movies’ 40th Anniversary

Bright Family Screening Room

Emerson College’s Paramount Center, 559 Washington Street

In celebration of Women Make Movies' 40th anniversary, ArtsEmerson screens The Heretics (2009) with award-winning New England video artist and Hampshire College Professor Joan Braderman in attendance. SCMS conference participants can obtain discounted tickets ($5) using code SCMS2012. Tickets can be purchased at the Paramount Theater Box Office (559 Washington Street), online at http://www.artsemerson.org, or by calling (617) 824-8400.

SATURDAY, MARCH 24

8 – 10:30 pm

The Alloy Orchestra and The Last Command

Emerson College’s Paramount Theater, 559 Washington Street

SCMS and Emerson College present the Alloy Orchestra performing live musical accompaniment for Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928). A portion of the house will be available on a first-come, first-served basis to SCMS conference participants with badges. Please arrive at least 20 minutes prior to show time, after which unclaimed SCMS-reserved seats will be offered to the public. Admission is free.

We look forward to seeing you in Boston!

Please read the following announcements.

Conference Registration and Fees

The online registration deadline for the 2012 SCMS Conference has been extended. The new deadline is Thursday, December 22, 2012 at 5pm (CT). The preliminary draft of the conference schedule will be available on the SCMS website next week. The SCMS office will send an e-mail notification and link to the schedule when it is available.

To be included in the final printed program and to participate in the conference, all panel and workshop chairs, presenters, and respondents must register online, pay the conference registration fee, AND be current members of SCMS by the December 22 registration deadline.

To register, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=conf_registration

As noted in the November 1, 2011 email to members, the registration fees for the SCMS conference have increased for some participants. The new registration fees are:

Conference Registration Fee (by December 16, 2011)

SCMS Member: $135 USD

SCMS Student Member: $75 USD

Onsite Registration Fee (March 21-25, 2012)

Member or Attendee: $195 USD

Student Member or Student Attendee: $125 USD

SCMS Members’ Directory

At its Fall 2011 meeting, the SCMS Board voted unanimously to cease publication of the SCMS Membership Directory in Cinema Journal. The primary rationales for this decision were the expense of publishing the Directory in print and the difficulty of reconciling members' postal addresses each year. Further, the online version is not only readily accessible but easily updated.

In the future, the Directory will be published on the SCMS website, available only to members.

If you have any concerns about this decision, please direct them to the SCMS Office at <office@cmstudies.org>.

Sincerely,

Mary Celeste Kearney

SCMS Secretary

Greetings from the Translation Committee.  Our committee continues the mandate of making non-English film/media scholarship available to the English-speaking community in order to expand and internationalize the contours of film/media studies.

The committee devoted the fall of 2010 to generating a pool of eight essays/book chapters/books to be considered for translation. They represent scholarship originally written in Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese. In Spring 2011, we selected three significant shorter essays to be translated and published in Cinema Journal.   The three essays are: 

1) An excerpt from Matsumoto Toshio’s Eizo no Hakken (1963)

2) Juan Piqueras’ "Nuestro Cine Amateur es Nuestro Cinema" (1935)

3) Sergey Tretyakov’s "Proizdodstvennyi stsenarii” (1928)

 We welcome suggestions and interests from people who work on/with translation, yet who are currently not on the committee. If you are interested, feel free to contact me at yw3@ucsc.edu.

Yiman Wang

SCMS Translation Committee Chair
Dept. of Film & Digital Media

University of California, Santa Cruz

The focus of the October SCMS News Brief is Archives.

Archival activities are a vital part of the SCMS mission:

· One of the Society’s standing committees is Media Archives.

· SCMS has representatives on the US National Film Preservation Board (http://www.loc.gov/film/filmmemb.html) and members are polled annually for suggestions to the US National Film Registry (http://www.loc.gov/film/filmnfr.html)

· SCMS shares institutional memberships with our sister society, AMIA (The Association of Moving Image Archivists)

· Each issue of Cinema Journal contains an Archival Notes section which is accessible through the SCMS website (http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=CJ_Archival_News)

In addition to these institutional resources, SCMS maintains an archive of its own history, which includes important resources that help us chart not only the history of the society—as it transformed from the Society of Cinematologists (1959) to the Society for Cinema Studies (1969) to the current Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2002)—but the history of our discipline. The SCMS Archive is held at Stanford University (http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/).

Donations from SCMS members past and present of papers and records of SCMS activities are always welcome. We are especially interested in records relating to Caucuses, Scholarly Interest Groups, and Committees (e.g., minutes of meetings).

Donations of photographs taken by members at annual conferences would be especially welcome.

Inquires may be directed to the SCMS Archivist, Michael Zryd, York University, Department of Film, CFT 223, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada; 1-647-430-8680; zryd@yorku.ca

Report of the Media Archives Committee on National Film Registry Nominations:

We received and relayed to a very appreciative Matthew Bernstein (our rep on the board) the following suggestions:

From the Experimental Film group:

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM (Su Friedrich, 1981; 14m, B&W 16mm): This is a b/w short film, meant to be screened at 16fps, that was a vital film in the history of the American avant-garde, bringing together the personal, psychological cinema of Brakhage et al's 1950s tradition with the formal rigour of the 1970s structural film, all to the end of expressing and representing newly emergent lesbian filmmaking in the 1980s. The filmmaker, Su Friedrich, has stated that it is difficult to find printing stocks that capture the deep blacks of the film so preservation is in order.

From the Queer Caucus:

1. FLAMING CREATURES, (Jack Smith, 1962-3)

Proclaimed "the single most important American avant-garde film ever" by Village Voice critic J. Hoberman, Jack Smith's FLAMING CREATURES was a significant inspiration for Andy Warhol, John Waters, and Tony Conrad, as well as a host of other artists across various media. Smith's film, with its groundbreaking representation of unconventional, indeterminate sexualities in an era of gender conformity, not only jumpstarted the queer underground of the 1960s and '70s and motivated scholarly discourse on and cultural practices of camp, pop and drag, it also paved the way for innovation in the broader American avant-garde arts scene of the latter part of the 20th Century. The film was the key text in a series of important legal debates on obscenity and censorship, and a defining film of the New American Cinema.

2. FIREWORKS (Kenneth Anger, 1947)

A groundbreaking film for the representation of homosexuality in American cinema, Fireworks is the first film of Kenneth Anger, one of the most important avant-garde film directors of the twentieth century. The film integrates important European avant garde influences, such as Jean Cocteau, with the queer subculture of mid-century Southern California. Fireworks has been a major influence on queer and avant-garde film in the US and around the world, and is frequently heralded as one of the most significant works of US avant-garde cinema.

3. PARIS IS BURNING (Jennie Livingston, 1990)

This documentary by Jennie Livingston portrays the black and Latino queer subcultures of drag balls and the events' participants. The film became a surprise popular hit, raising intense critical debate about the politics of representation and audience response, and has been central to academic work on queer theory and in critical race studies. Although controversial, the film has remained a cultural touchstone for queer audiences, particularly for queers of color, transgender people, and youth. Its inclusion on the National Film Registry would not only reflect its significant cultural status, it would also contribute to the diversity of the Registry's list (in terms of documentaries, films by women, queer subjects, and representations of people of color).

Mark Cooper

Chair, Media Archives Committee

CONFERENCE SUBMISSIONS:

Welcome to the new conference submission pages, which are finally up and running! You will find (re-designed) proposal forms for pre-constituted panels, workshops, open call papers, and screenings on the website. Please follow instructions carefully, and check the FAQs if you are in doubt. The deadline for proposal submissions is September 1 at 5 pm (CT). We strongly encourage you to submit your proposals before that date if possible.

Hot tip: On the proposal forms, you will need to enter your name – and, if you are proposing a panel or workshop, the names of other participants – exactly as it/they appear in the Members Directory. 

Please note that you do not need to be an SCMS member to submit a proposal. However, if you are not an SCMS member, you must register as a temporary member of the SCMS website by August 31, 5 pm CT, in order to submit a proposal. This membership is good for 30 days only. (All temporary registrations require approval by the Home Office.) If your proposal is accepted, you will need to become an SCMS member for 2011-2012 and register for the conference by December 16. We strongly recommend that dues-paying new members also register by August 31, 5 pm CT. Renewing members do not require approval but we urge you to submit your proposal before the final deadline as well.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL:

We encourage all current SCMS members to renew their membership by September 1, at the start of the new membership year. For directions on how to renew, please visit the "Renew Your Membership” section of the website (you must be logged in to access this page.)

DONATIONS:

As part of the annual membership renewal process, we urge you to donate to one of several SCMS funds. Our organization really does rely on member support to meet our mission. You have several options -- donate to the general fund, to travel funds, and/or to any of a number of earmarked awards. No donation is too small -- or too large! However you can help, please do so. (Donations are tax deductible if you itemize.) Donations can be made here.  

STRATEGIC PLANNING INITIATIVES:

After a year and a half of developing specific, concrete strategic planning initiatives, the Board of Directors has accomplished a great deal. We now have a good sense of short-, medium-, and long-range goals needed to ensure SCMS' continued growth and service to cinema and media faculty and students around the world. Some of our immediate objectives include:

Staffing:

We are currently seeking a short-term Research Assistant to help with data collection and specific strategic planning tasks. Applications are due August 15. Details can be found on the website.

We also welcome applications by September 30 for the influential position of Cinema Journal Editor. Details are posted on the website.

We continue to clarify and streamline Board member, Home Office staff, and consultant responsibilities and are working on developing an efficient management structure that will facilitate organizational flow and meet staffing needs in deliberate and timely ways.

Technology:

The SCMS website is a labor of love and a work in progress. A new committee comprised of Board members, SCMS members, and IT Committee members will begin reviewing the content, functionality, and organization of our website’s various pages this fall. We welcome your comments, and we thank all who have sent specific suggestions for improvement. To submit specific comments, please feel free to use the online form. Our Strategic Planning Consultant, Justin Wyatt, will interview individual SCMS members to obtain their input later in the year. We are also thinking about long-term maintenance and development of the website. And we are exploring other communication venues for members as well (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, online publication).

Good News: We have arranged for wi-fi connections in all meeting rooms in the 2012 conference hotel.

Finances:

Our membership is now over 2500 worldwide and growing. Our budgets have become more complex. The Board of Directors is currently reviewing SCMS budgets with an eye to consolidation and clear oversight. This will provide us with more readily accessible information about actual and projected income and expenses.

International Outreach:

Several exciting international initiatives are underway. These will be the subject of the October newsbrief.

Future Conference Locations

The SCMS Board of Directors has selected the beautiful Drake Hotel in Chicago, IL as the location for the 2013 SCMS conference.

The SCMS Conference Consultant, Justin Wyatt, is currently soliciting bids from hotels in the West for the 2014 conference. The Board will select a location for that conference at its Fall 2011 meeting.

Stay with Us! (or, Top 10 Reasons You Should Stay at the Conference Hotel)

We look forward to seeing you at the historic, conveniently-located Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers for the 2012 conference! Information about the 2012 conference is now on the SCMS website.

We strongly encourage conference participants to reserve guestrooms at the Park Plaza. There are many benefits to staying at the conference hotel, especially the ease of close proximity to conference events and the opportunity to interact and network with other participants for extended periods of time.

Have an early-morning panel presentation or a late-night meeting? Need a place to crash between panels? Want to change your clothes or drop off your laptop before you head out for the night? The Park Plaza is your home-away-from-home during the conference!

As detailed below, our organization faces multiple significant challenges when participants do not stay at the conference hotel. We respectfully ask that you consider those challenges before deciding where to make your reservation.

How are conference locations selected?

The SCMS annual conference rotates between three regional locations—the East, Midwest, and West—to guarantee parity across our various U.S. constituencies.

The Board selects conference locations based on the following criteria (in no particular order): affordability for all conference participants, ease of access to reasonably priced transportation, host committee potential, and local attractions. Occasionally, the Board elects to hold the annual conference outside of the United States.

The Board welcomes proposals for future conference locations from individual SCMS members, Caucuses, and Scholarly Interest Groups. Please contact the SCMS Home Office for instructions on how to make such a proposal.

How are conference hotels selected?

Once the SCMS Board has selected a conference location, the SCMS Conference Consultant solicits bids from various hotels in that city. Hotels are invited to make bids for the conference based on the specialized needs of SCMS, including meeting rooms, exhibition space, room rates, and quality of accommodation. The Conference Consultant is charged with finding the most reasonable rates while also meeting SCMS and its members’ needs. Hotel costs are always negotiated with an eye to making the guestrooms and overall conference experience affordable to student, part-time, and unemployed members, as well as independent scholars.

What challenges does SCMS face in securing hotel bids?

Unfortunately, given the size of the SCMS conference and the required meeting rooms, the number of hotels that meet SCMS’ needs and are able to make bids is few, even in large cities. For instance, our annual conference does not produce as much food and beverage revenue as most hotels prefer. Moreover, because we utilize 20+ concurrent meetings rooms over 5 days, this usually means that a hotel must deny meeting space to other potential customers. In many cases, SCMS is the major group "in-house” for the hotel, and, as such, our organization becomes the focus for the hotel during our conference.

Following typical protocol in North American conferences, SCMS asks hotels to provide complimentary meeting space in return for our guarantee of a specific number of guestroom reservations. Much is at stake if conference participants stay at other hotels and our organization fails to meet our guaranteed room block. Many charges routinely negotiated in hotel contracts (e.g., audio-visual equipment) depend on SCMS’s ability to meet our room block goals. Another issue is leverage: The value of SCMS’ business to hotels is dependent on the number of guestrooms our organization can guarantee. If we don't meet our room block, SCMS will lose negotiation leverage with our contracted hotel (and its affiliated hotels) in future years. SCMS’ reputation among other hotels could be damaged as well.

More significant, when the required number of reservations is not met, SCMS pays for its meeting rooms, which typically results in a deficit for the conference and thus a loss of income for our organization as a whole. Yet perhaps the worst consequence is a high attrition fee, that is, an additional charge if we don’t meet our room block goal. In the aftermath of 9/11, hotels’ charging of six-figure attrition fees has not been uncommon. SCMS would be devastated financially if this were to happen. Indeed, we may be unable to put on the next year’s conference.

For all of these reasons, we hope that you will stay with us at the conference hotel.

We look forward to seeing you next March at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel!

Editor, Cinema Journal

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) seeks a new Editor and a new institutional home for its scholarly publication, Cinema Journal. Application deadline: September 30, 2011.

Background and History

Published by the SCMS since 1959, Cinema Journal is the second oldest scholarly publication devoted to the study of film and media studies in the United States.

Cinema Journal is published quarterly by the University of Texas Press. Members of the Society receive the journal as one of the benefits of membership. Cinema Journal is open to all areas of humanities-oriented scholarship in media studies. It welcomes submissions on film, television, radio, sound, and digital media. Considered one of the top journals in media studies, the acceptance rate is about 15 percent.

In addition to featuring in-depth engaging essays, Cinema Journal also includes:

• In Focus - a special thematic section of short essays published in each issue of Cinema Journal. The feature is compiled by a guest editor selected by the editor of Cinema Journal.
• Book Reviews - Reviews are featured in each issue of Cinema Journal and are generally matched thematically with the In Focus feature.

• Archival News - This online feature reports recent news highlights from the media archive community, including: acquisitions, preservation, institutional and organizational changes, exhibitions, awards, new DVD releases, online resources, and technology.

• Professional Notes -This online feature lists recent books published in media studies, as well as articles on film and TV published in non-media journals.

SCMS represents the interests of scholars in cinema and media studies through an international constituency that numbers over 2500 members. The organization is also a member of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Description and Policies of Cinema Journal

All essays submitted to Cinema Journal are blind refereed. In addition to scholarly essays, Cinema Journal publishes a section of thematically connected, short solicited essays as part of its In Focus section, Professional Notes, an Archival News column, essays on teaching, and an annual directory of SCMS members.

General Position Description

The Editor of Cinema Journal is primarily responsible for processing submissions, procuring readers, and corresponding with authors. The Editor also copyedits all manuscripts before submission to the University of Texas Press and insures that Cinema Journal's various sections are submitted in a timely and professional manner. He or she also procures guest editors for the In Focus feature and assigns authors to write shorter features such as conference reports. The Editor is assisted by an Associate Editor, a Book Review Editor, and an editorial board. In addition, the Editor is expected to receive support from his/her home institution.

Editor's Term and Obligations

The Cinema Journal Editor is selected by the SCMS Board of Directors. The Editor serves a five-year term, which may be renewed. The Editor is responsible for selecting an editorial board, whose members also serve a five-year term, subject to the approval of the SCMS Board of Directors.

The Editor serves as ex officio member of the SCMS Board of Directors. He/she attends all Board meetings (ordinarily twice each year) and reports to the Board on issues concerning Cinema Journal at these times. As part of the application process, the Editor submits a statement of interest, outline of his/her qualifications, and vision for the journal to the Board for its approval. Apart from approving the policy and the Editor's proposed editorial board, the Board has no jurisdiction over the conduct of Cinema Journal.

Role of the Host Institution

The institution that houses Cinema Journal must supply the Editor with suitable office space, a computer, postage, fax services, office supplies, photocopying, an email account, and a long-distance telephone line. A part-time graduate student assistant should be assigned to help with proofreading, manuscript processing, correspondence, inquiries, clerical duties, and other miscellaneous chores. The Editor may also procure assistance from interns. The Editor must also be granted some course release time by his/her home institution.

The host institution supports the Editor's travel expenses to the annual SCMS conference each spring so that he or she may attend the Board of Directors’ meeting that is held at that time. The expenses incurred by the Editor in connection with the Board's fall meeting are covered by SCMS.

Benefits

Association with Cinema Journal enhances an institution's visibility and prestige in the field of cinema and media studies. It offers the Editor an unparalleled familiarity with major issues of scholarly and disciplinary concern, as well as providing him or her with an in-depth knowledge of cutting-edge research. It also provides graduate student assistants and other students associated with the activities of the Editor a unique professional experience and an understanding of scholarly standards and conventions in cinema and media studies.

Timeline

The SCMS Board of Directors will ideally make its selection of a new Editor by January 1, 2012. The new Editor will not assume his/her role until one full year later, on January 1, 2013. This one year period between selection and appointment will allow for a smooth transition between the current and the new Editor. It will also ensure that the new Editor is fully conversant with his/her responsibilities and with the work flow of the journal itself (since In Focus and book reviews are assigned a year in advance of their publication).

Please submit your statement of interest to the Board of Directors as well as a summary of your qualifications and a statement of your vision for the journal by September 30, 2011 to:

The SCMS Board of Directors

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

University of Oklahoma

640 Parrington Oval

Wallace Old Science Hall, Room 300

Norman, OK 73019

E-Mail: office@cmstudies.org

The organisation has been formed in response to a perceived lack of visibility at a national and institutional level and it will work in conjunction with other organisations like SCMS to help raise the discipline’s standing. 

The inaugural meeting of BAFTSS will take place on Sunday 26th June at Birkbeck College London. All are welcome. To find out more about BAFTSS, to register your support, or to sign up to its discussion list, please visit: www.baftss.org.

Call for Committee Service

SCMS is a member-run organization and service to our profession remains critical to the ongoing health of our field and to our scholarly organization. Serving on an SCMS committee is also an excellent way of networking with other members and providing vital service to the organization. SCMS committees include: Professional Development, Media Archive, Information Technologies, Teaching, Public Policy, Nominating, Translation, Conference Program, Screening and Host committees. Award committees include Kovács Book and Essay, Student Writing and Dissertation, Distinguished Career Achievement and Pedagogy awards, Best Edited Collection, Best First Book, Best Essay in an Edited Collection and the Anne Friedberg award for Innovative Scholarship. Lists of all SCMS committees, committee descriptions, and current members are posted on the website under About Us in the main menu.

If you are interested in volunteering to serve, please contact the SCMS office (office@cmstudies.org), SCMS President Patrice Petro (ppetro@uwm.edu), or submit the committee volunteer form through the SCMS website at:

https://cmstudies.site-ym.com/?page=Volunteer_service.

The names of volunteers will be forwarded to the SCMS Board of Directors for review and final approval. The SCMS Office staff will notify individuals chosen to serve on SCMS committees in July.

Boston 2012 Call for Paper, Panel, and Workshop Proposals

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies announces its call for paper, panel, and workshop proposals for the 2012 conference to be held Wednesday, March 21 through Sunday, March 25 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers.

One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston is renowned as the heart of the American academy and thus as a vibrant center of critical thought and discourse. The city boasts many colleges and universities, including several with cinema and media studies programs, as well as a vibrant independent media community and a long history of public radio and television.

The Program Committee welcomes quality paper, panel, and workshop proposals on any topic related to cinema and media studies.

The deadline for proposals for open call papers as well as pre-constituted panels and workshops is Thursday September 1, 2011 (5:00 pm CST). Details as to how to propose a paper, panel, or workshop will be available in early June through the SCMS website. Please check the website and watch for our emails for updates.

Accepted and declined proposal notifications will be emailed in late November.

Boston 2012 Call for Screening Proposals

The Screening Committee invites nominations for screenings for the 2012 SCMS conference in Boston, March 21-25. We are especially keen to reflect a diverse range of formal, stylistic, and cultural traditions, and to feature a variety of amateur as well as professional work. Screenings will run concurrently with panel and workshop sessions, and some will link directly to the content of panels or workshops.

If you would like to bring titles to the Committee's attention, please complete the online nomination form by Thursday, September 1, 2010 (5 pm CST). In curating selections for the conference, the Screening Committee will work closely with the Caucuses and SIGs, as well as the Conference Program and Host Committees. SCMS members are encouraged to submit film titles through chairs of a Caucus or Scholarly Interest Group.

Note: The running time of each film selected for the conference screenings must be 105 minutes or less. Please do not request a given day or time for your screening, and do not send DVDs until the Screening Committee has notified you. Only films recorded in the Region 1/NTSC DVD format will be considered for the screenings program.

Accepted and declined proposal notifications will be emailed in late November.

Caucus and Scholarly Interest Group Membership

SCMS members are encouraged to become involved in our various groups in order to network and collaborate with other members with similar interests. Our Caucuses were formed to provide support and advocacy for members historically under-represented within our Society and the academy based on marginal social status. The Scholarly Interest Groups have been formed to facilitate communication and collaboration among members working in a specific area of cinema and media studies. The Graduate Student Organization provides fellowship, support, and advocacy for the Society’s student members.

Members can join as many of our groups as they like.

To join a Caucus, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=caucuses, and then click on "Members’ Caucus Group Page/Join Now” for the Caucus of interest.

To join a Scholarly Interest Group, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/?page=scholar_interst_gr, and then click on "SIG Members’ Group Page/Join Now” for the SIG of interest.

To join the Graduate Student Organization, visit http://www.cmstudies.org/members/group.asp?id=60572, and click on "Join Group.”

Members’ Business Meeting Minutes

March 11, 2011

New Orleans, LA

President Patrice Petro called the meeting to order at 12:10 pm.

I. Introduction

Petro introduced our newly elected officers and Board members: Barbara Klinger (President-Elect), Jim Castonguay (Treasurer), Angelo Restivo and Pamela Wojcik (Executive Council), and Lindsay Garrison (Graduate Student Representative). Petro also introduced current officers and board members, and thanked those leaving the Board in June 2011.

II. Discussion of Strategic Planning

Petro gave an update on the Board’s strategic planning. She noted the founding of the Development Committee last year, as well as the Board’s hiring of Justin Wyatt as a consultant to help the Board with long-range planning.

Petro discussed the members’ survey results, including members’ desire for better adherence to time limits for conference panel presentations and more time to socialize during the conference. She noted that the February 2011 newsbrief posted on the SCMS website summarizes the survey results. Petro also noted the Board’s inauguration of New Members’ Orientation Sessions at the 2011 conference in response to members’ desire for better communication and more transparency about the Society and its various practices and structures.

III. Treasurer’s Report

Treasurer Paula Massood presented a report. She noted that the Society’s finances remain healthy at roughly $400,000, though we are hoping to grow this amount with a particular eye toward improving our administrative practices. She discussed the new website’s costs, as well as income from Cinema Journal. She also reminded members that the Society has funded several new awards. In addition, Massood announced a raffle for an iPad 2 at the 2011 conference. Tickets cost $5.00 each, and proceeds will go to travel grants for students and un-/under-employed scholars. The winner will be announced at the conference’s closing reception Saturday evening.

IV. Information Technology Officer Report

Information Technology Officer Andrew Miller presented a report. He noted that the Board responded to members’ concerns by contracting for free wifi for members during the 2011 conference. He updated members as to the progress on the new website, noting that we are currently finalizing the new conference site. He noted that the website has been updated recently for the 2011 conference, noting the addition of a "live” page which allows for the posting of up-to-date text and images, and will be useful for archiving. Miller also noted that he and the Home Office staff need members to update their online member profiles each year so that we can have better information on membership and share that with others, for advocacy purposes, for example. He introduced Sarah Denton, a Home Office staff member who works on the website.

Miller entertained questions from members regarding the group pages as well as a recommendation that we keep in mind the ease of the website’s use for essential information.

V. Alliance for Networking Visual Culture

University of Southern California Professor Tara McPherson presented information about the Mellon Grants and the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, which is supported by Mellon grants. She discussed the potential to collaborate on various projects with SCMS and its members (including workshops and the initial funding and technical support for an online journal), along with other scholarly organizations, presses, and archives.

VI. Gratitude for Service

Secretary Mary Celeste Kearney thanked the Caucus and SIG co-chairs for their service to the Society in the past year, and asked them to introduce themselves to the rest of the members present.

VII. Other Questions and Announcements

One member applauded our decision not to have a commercial website, but asked if we might consider obtaining possible revenue via advertising members’ new books.

Petro discussed American Council of Learned Societies and its benefits for the Society.

One member asked if SCMS is a North American institution only. Petro commented on SCMS’ networking with other groups, many of which are located outside of North America.

Petro extended a general call to service to all members present, encouraging them to volunteer to serve on SCMS’ various committees.

Petro adjourned the meeting at 1:03 pm.

Minutes prepared by Kearney.

Thursday, March 10 at 11 am & Friday, March 11
11 am-12 noon, Orientation for New Members

If you are new to SCMS, please plan to attend one of the two Orientation for New Members sessions in the French Quarter Bar on Level Three. You will learn more about the Society, the conference, the journal, and other benefits of membership.

Thursday, March 10
6:15-7:15 pm, Awards Ceremony and 7:30-8:30 pm, Opening Reception

Please be sure to attend the Awards Ceremony in the Grand Ballroom, Level Two (Salons II & III). The Opening Reception follows the Award Ceremony in the Gallery Foyer, Level One.

Friday, March 11
12 noon – 1 pm, Members’ Business Meeting

All SCMS members are encouraged to attend the annual Members’ Business Meeting (in Audubon, Level One) to learn more about SCMS, current strategic planning processes, and the new website. Members will also meet the officers and Board members, the newly elected officers and Board members, and the leadership of the SCMS Caucuses and Scholarly Interest Groups.

Friday , March 11

6-7:45 pm, Host Committee Special Event: New Orleans/Louisiana Archives and Local Culture
New Orleans and Louisiana archive workers will discuss the significance of local film and media archive collections for film and television histories and the importance of local culture for early television and contemporary filmmaking at The Williams Research Center of the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC), 410 Chartres Street, easy walking distance from the Ritz Carlton. A 30-minute screening will follow the workshop discussion. Seating is available on a first come, first served basis. (http://www.hnoc.org/collections/research-center.html)

Friday , March 11

7 -8:30 pm, Projecting Performance (Part II)

Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson expand on their panel presentation from Thursday (Session B7 at 2 pm) at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Building complex processes out of seemingly elemental components, the filmmakers ask viewers to experience not only the nuances of projected light, but also what they call "the soft and fragile emulsion of time.” Gibson and Recoder have exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Tate Modern (London) and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. A ticket may be purchased at the door for $10.00. (http://zeitgeisttheater.wordpress.com/)

Saturday, March 12
8 – 9:45 am, AFI Meet & Greet
An introduction of the American Film Institute’s Catalog Academic Network program with AFI Catalog Editor Robert S. Birchard in the French Quarter Bar on Level Three.

Saturday March 12
6-8 pm, Closing Reception

Catch up with old friends and meet new ones at the first ever SCMS closing reception in honor of the service of SCMS members in 2010-2011 in the Grand Ballroom, Level Two.

Barbara Klinger has been elected as President-Elect, Jim Castonguay has been elected as Treasurer, Pamela Wojcik and Angelo Restivo have been elected to the Executive Council, and Lindsay Garrison has been elected as the Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Directors. Congratulations to them all! They will begin their terms on July 1, 2011.

Members also approved the alteration to Article VII, Section 3 of the Bylaws, which will now require 25 members to establish a new Scholarly Interest Group.

The Board thanks Eric Schaefer, Caryl Flinn, Sylvia Chong, Glenn Man, and Mabel Rosenheck for their willingness to stand for office and their ongoing service and commitment to the Society.

Thanks also to members of the Nominating Committee: Charles Wolfe (chair), Gilberto Blasini, Krin Gabbard, Lucy Fischer, Jonathan Gray, Mark Shiel, and Patty White.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who took the time to read the candidates' platforms and to cast a ballot in this year's election.