A filmstrip called "A Slave Story" (1986). Christopher Harris live-narrates at #Orphans2026 April 8-11. Photo: Tara Merenda Nelson (Visual Studies Workshop)

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying I have a complicated relationship with writing (it is very hard! I’m a perfectionist!), I don’t always “enjoy” it per say, but I do “enjoy” sharing my ideas and feeling good when something I struggled with ultimately turns out “good to me.” Human feelings, you know!

Happy birthday to Gloria Swanson and happy publication day to my new book THE CURSE OF QUEEN KELLY, available from @stickingplacebk.bsky.social here stickingplacebooks.com/books/the-cu...

todays must-read!!!

I'm excited to share that the book launch for NOTHING CENSORED, NOTHING GAINED is Friday, April 3, 2026 at 1pm EST with a stellar lineup of panelists: Peter Alilunas, Lynn Comella, Constance Penley, Matthew Tinkcom, and Thomas Waugh! Cosponsored by @scmsqtc.bsky.social and @scmsadultfilm.bsky.social

Elizabeth Lo’s MISTRESS DISPELLER is one of the too-few new documentaries I saw in 2025. I don’t have anything insightful to say about it besides “watch it” + read Penny Lane’s essay on Criterion Current. She articulates some of what I never quite could about it www.criterion.com/current/post...

Happy to write about @ashcclark.bsky.social's new book The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films. My thoughts and an excerpt via @ebertvoices.bsky.social.

Community and Crisis and Community. A teaser 25 secs. Héctor Morales. thx TAMIS John Morton for the beautiful color films from Clarksville bank, 1939. Found unid. recording of "Go Where I Send Thee." #orphans2026

A very belated congrats to the great @cainmiller.bsky.social. I’m a big Harrington fan so glad to see someone researching him!

It was a pleasure speaking with @allyfield.bsky.social about her incisive new book LABOR OF LOVE: BLACK PERFORMANCE AND THE KISS THAT CHANGED FILM—a work I find to be equally revealing and thrilling. Our conversation via LA Review of Books.

And from a few days ago! Blog post by Gu Xue (FamilyLens) on his upcoming #Orphans2026 presentation about home movie archiving in contemporary China. He’ll present with Ann Lyuwenyu Zhang (NYU) + Dwight Swanson @orphanfilm.bsky.social wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

We’re proud to announce winner of our Nontheatrical Student Essay Award 2026 (collab w/ THE MOVING IMAGE @amianet.bsky.social journal) We congratulate John Adrianfer Atienza (U of the Philippines Diliman) for his essay: "When the Looks Speak: Filipino Balik-titig in American Wartime Newsreels” 🏆

⚾️❤️ ⚾️❤️ ⚾️❤️ ⚾️❤️

This is a thread of items from the collections of Chicago Film Archives that are newly available to view online. You can search the collection here: www.chicagofilmarchives.org/collections/

Please read my essay in the new Journal of American History about how abolitionists used runaway slave ads to ridicule slavery. #slaveryarchive

🤩 Oh boy I’m extra excited about this one! #Orphans2026 🤩

Recorded lecture also included discussion of Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab’s LEVIATHAN and pictures of 7,000 children’s animated films that anthropomorphize animals. I’m a 0% specialist in animal studies and eco-cinema scholarship but I think this is sufficient enough for undergrads

My final weeks of “Film Theory via JAWS” centers non-human and ecological POVs. Favorite essay of the bunch is Brett Mills’s “Jaws, From The Shark’s Point of View.” (We’re also watching MY OCTOPUS TEACHER which I despise). Played chorus of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” + revised lyrics to frame..

We’re also proud to announce Will Hair (UChicago) earned an honorable mention for his submission: “Local Haunts: Uncovering Blackness in the H. Lee Waters Film Collection”

Oh so now copyright matters.

We’re going to keep doing this, huh.

most rational AI discussions boil down to "there are probably some good uses for this, but the tools actively encourage you to use them badly, and so do the people selling them"

A perpetual h/t to @kristenfuhs.bsky.social and Jaimie Baron for managing their Docalogue series. Every month I'm reminded that I wish I was better at keeping up with contemporary documentaries!

Raise your hand if the only reason you kind of know the Passover Story is because of the Rugrats Passover Special that aired on Nickelodeon in 1995. I think we also owned in on VHS? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rugra...

This is a really good thread about, among other things, the meaningful misperceptions among AI evangelists about what writers/researchers/journalists actually do.

I'm a big fan of documentaries but don't tend to write much about them. Was excited to be asked to contribute my thoughts to Docalogue on the latest from one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers, Raoul Peck. Check it out! docalogue.com/orwell-225/

Another preview for #Orphans2026. Owen Gottlieb will present his work on ‘orphaned television,’ specifically an episode of the series "Inside/Out” produced by the The Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT). The episode is held at Indiana U’s Moving Image Archive. wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

A HUGE congrats to @mcastimovies.bsky.social!

Ah, just discovered Ashley has published the Nick Viernes #homemovies collection! DOI below. I obviously ILL’d this immediately and am happy to share with anyone interested when I get it. muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/articl...

Another @orphanfilm.bsky.social blog post we missed! John Morton of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound on his upcoming presentation of newly restored 16mm color films from 1939 made in "The Volunteer State.” Symposium starts in one week! wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

"Colorization is a good comparison, but it didn’t have the same sweeping social and economic impact of something like generative AI — so there’s more at stake in how we sort through what we’re going to accept and valorize.” https://loom.ly/bAsiIDM

Following @jenniferpete.bsky.social's lead, here’s my blog post on film I’m presenting in just over a week at the Orphan Film Symposium in Ohio. I’m on a mission for everyone in the world to see the joyous SUNDAY ON THE RIVER (1961) #Orphans2026 @orphanfilm.bsky.social wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

Pumped to see that Ashley Dequilla (Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago) will be back presenting again at the @orphanfilm.bsky.social symposium. I consider her presentation on ‘30s/‘40s home movies a highlight of the 2024 symposium. A preview... wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seems reasonable. And yet…. Literally my teaching mantra this year is “Just Be A Human!”

Appears I missed when it first dropped. Kudos to the brilliant @jenmhessler.bsky.social + Elliot Montpellier for stewarding special issue on Big Data Audiences. Pre-academia I worked in market research; I also obsess over references to audience size in my nontheatrical research so… I dig this!

Following @jenniferpete.bsky.social's lead, here’s my blog post on film I’m presenting in just over a week at the Orphan Film Symposium in Ohio. I’m on a mission for everyone in the world to see the joyous SUNDAY ON THE RIVER (1961) #Orphans2026 @orphanfilm.bsky.social wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

I thought I wasn’t into “women’s pictures” and I had a heart of stone. Then I saw DARK VICTORY.

Two new books I bought that will inevitably not read for at least 6 months.

Continuing my adjective word clouds for “Intro to Film” students. Here is how my ~80 students described Alex Rivera’s brilliant sci-fi film SLEEP DEALER (2008). If you haven’t seen it, check it out!

New: federal Judge hands NPR and PBS a victory over President Trump: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/b...

Another good point! There really isn’t a uniform model that works. The various threads (including @medievaliste.bsky.social’s on adjunct pay) show wild variance in pay, workload, equity et. al. that people outside of know nothing about. (Heck, even those in higher ed don’t always appreciate),

i guess i wouldn't agree but only because i don't want to concede the point that *any* class should have more than, say, 40 students.

Amusing observation about my students. Seems when I give my students range of film choices for independent screenings at least 50% pick the most recent release. Anyway….happy that so many of my “Film History 1960 to Present” students watched (and seemed to appreciate) ZONE OF INTEREST!

Another that I sure hope would be universally agreed upon by anyone: People teaching 400+ students/semester across 3 classes vs. those w/ 50/semester across 3 classes shouldn’t be paid same amount. We are paid by credit-hour but sheer number of students means more grading which means more work.

It’s not OK to ask faculty to take on independent studies without extra pay or dramatic reduction to service or a course-release

This is largely by design. If we stop thinking about AI as simply technology and instead as part of a political and economic program, its chief function become easier to see: namely to erode interpersonal trust so that ultimately we give up on forms of agreement & negotiation arbitrated by people.

Here's the link to the free pdf of my new book The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet. Access is so important and I'm grateful that the press is platforming it as one file that is easy to download. www.upress.umn.edu/978081669906...

In case you're doubtful, there are quite a few entries at this level or below on the 2025-6 list.

It’s actually not okay to pay someone with a PhD $2500 to teach a college course