With the horrifying capitulation by Columbia, and as someone that has worked in the college admissions space for 20+ years, I would want more like to rail against the right's ABSOLUTE OBSESSION w/GPA and test scores as being the only thing that should matter for admissions. It is an asinine metric!

The Hollywood Conference was great! Congratulations to @lucimarz.bsky.social and all the organizers. #HWC2025

The Hollywood Conference at USC was perfect: highly-quality scholarship on a focused topic, great mix of scholars at all ranks, and lots of time for conviviality and community. Thanks @lucimarz.bsky.social! You’re an ace. #HWC2025

The Hollywood Conference affirmed my love of small, thematic conferences. I saw so many inspiring talks, and there was enough downtime to have actual conversations with people I have known for a long time and with people I just met here. I hope there will be a second iteration. #HWC2025

On the occasion of #HWC2025 our colleague Eric Hoyt (of Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research) has written this wonderful blog post. Includes links to resources from Media History Digital Library. wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/index.php/20...

Looks like Los Angeles is going to show off its A+ weather for the Hollywood Conference this week. Bring your sunglasses for the LA sunshine and light sweaters for our breezy evenings (and overzealous air conditioning in the School of Cinematic Arts). #HWC2025

This 1st—of hopefully many—Hollywood Conference is going to be so 🔥 and I’m extremely jealous of the lucky folks who get to attend! Enjoy & post everything @lucimarz.bsky.social @jdconnor.bsky.social @nitingovil.bsky.social And what a time to be in LA 😍

The Hollywood Conference is just over a week away and we have our full schedule up on our website. It's going to be so much fun (for an academic conference)! #HWC25 thehollywoodconference.com

Despite these weird times, I’m looking forward to participating in the inaugural Hollywood Conference at University of Southern California in a few weeks. Bravo @lucimarz.bsky.social @jdconnor.bsky.social @nitingovil.bsky.social + team for planning an amazing 4 days! www.thehollywoodconference.com

Gutted by the loss of my friend and colleague Barbara. I never could have written EH without her guidance and help in penetrating the hidden archives of the Herrick. Her chapter on the Art Directors Guild in Hollywood Unions was a vivid example of the care and thought she put into everything.

Barbara Hall, film historian, Archivist for the Art Directors Guild, former Archivist at the Margaret Herrick Library (AMPAS), and co-author of Letters from Hollywood: Inside the Private World of Classic American Moviemaking (2019), passed away on May 24, 2025, surrounded by her loving family.

They're terminating OPT. Today the nominee to head USCIS stated directly: he will end Optional Practical Training, the single largest channel for high-skill immigrants to work in the US. 6 weeks ago I warned about this & summarized the research on impacts of this drastic action—> @piie.com

The lovely @natlhumanities.bsky.social is hiring a Scholarly Programs Research Manager! nationalhumanitiescenter.org/careers/

I made a silent puppet film about Godzilla vs. Paul Bunyan. (thank you to @iamchubbybunny.bsky.social for Japanese translations and @okaywolf.ink for clanky piano!!)

Had a fantastic final class in my seminar on #HollywoodUnions today. So exciting to see student engage with the work. They presented on women editors, equity and the roster system, WGA arbitration, reality TV writers and performers, HUAC, TikTok drama production, controlling data in negotiations…

This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, If They Dare www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...

Beautiful piece on Linda Williams (1946-2025 💔) in the NY Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/a...

Crisscrossing the Hollywood-Documentary Divide” with Joshua Glick, Michael Renov, and Dave Fresko at USC’s Hollywood Conference #HWC25. Glad Glick corralled us 🤣

Decisions for the Hollywood Conference are out and registration is open! We're so excited to see you all in Los Angeles this summer. #HWC25 www.thehollywoodconference.com/register

USC's Hollywood conference--here we come! #HWC25

I spy @lucimarz.bsky.social and @kfortmueller.bsky.social’s edited volume HOLLYWOOD UNIONS prominently on display at the Margaret Herrick Library!

everyone should listen to this in its entirety but journalists should listen to it multiple times. this is how you ask questions. you just keep asking simple, easily answerable stuff and the evasiveness becomes that much more glaring

Senator Schumer on the Galactic Empire: we will allow them to blow up planets for now in the event this makes them unpopular and then maybe we can get some of their support to stop blowing up planets

Check out the latest episode of New Books in Film on Kate Fortmueller and Luci Marzola's wonderful new collection, Hollywood Unions!

@lucimarz.bsky.social and I had a great time chatting about Hollywood Unions on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. Thanks, @petecant.bsky.social for asking thoughtful questions! newbooksnetwork.com/hollywood-un...

We have two job openings in the Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Non tenure-track, of interest for those who work in cultural studies or critical media, don't mind a full-time lecture schedule, and enjoy working with grad TAs. It's a three-year renewable post. Please circulate!

It is publication day for THE CINEMA OF EXTRACTIONS (@columbiaup.bsky.social), a book about the materials that make movies possible and how to read between the raw materials and the screen worlds they create.

Amazing opportunity at the Academy Museum! Film critic writing workshop for high school & college students with foundational Black women critics. Apps are due Feb 14. www.academymuseum.org/en/programs/...

It’s the final hours to get your proposals in! Though I promise we won’t close up the portal right at midnight, so the stragglers can get theirs in. 😁

2025's hottest game is, once again, Who Goes Nazi it's a lot of people harpers.org/archive/1941...

one of my favorite quotes from David Lynch, about the magic of Los Angeles

The deadline for the Hollywood Conference is one week away! So exciting to see the proposals coming in. Make sure you get yours submitted on time. www.thehollywoodconference.com/cfp

Happy New Year, everyone! Did you know that the deadline for submissions to the Hollywood Conference is only 16 days away?! Remember to submit your papers, panels, and roundtables by January 19th so you can join us at USC in July! www.thehollywoodconference.com/cfp

Now that the semester/quarter is wrapped and you need a distraction from grading, why not submit a proposal for the Hollywood Conference! We'll be accepting submissions until January 19th. www.thehollywoodconference.com/cfp

Just in time for the holidays

The special issue of @twccomms.bsky.social “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” I co-edited with Matt Griffin is out now! It features four original essays on Black fandom + K-pop, horror podcasting, the Hillman bookstore, and Scandal. journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw...

Now that the semester/quarter is wrapped and you need a distraction from grading, why not submit a proposal for the Hollywood Conference! We'll be accepting submissions until January 19th. www.thehollywoodconference.com/cfp

1/5. Most people alive today (born after the vaccine was introduced in the 1950s) have little sense of how pervasive polio once was. In Leave Her to Heaven (1945) Danny is a polio patient at Warm Springs, GA, then-famous as a treatment center for FDR, whose polio-related disability was kept secret.

Since today is the official publication date for #HollywoodUnions I feel justified putting out another plug. This was such a labor of love for @kfortmueller.bsky.social and I and all of our contributors. We're so excited for it to be out and read and taught. Discount code in the flyer below.

Hollywood Unions—available for purchase 30% off from @rutgersupress.bsky.social! Use code RUP30

It’s arrived! @kfortmueller.bsky.social and I are so thrilled to have this out in the world (and done). Get your copy of #HollywoodUnions from @rutgersupress.bsky.social now!

A good mail day—and what a beaut! Congratulations, @kfortmueller.bsky.social and @lucimarz.bsky.social!

Very excited that our roundtable on methods for studying media institutions was accepted into #SCMS25. @kfortmueller.bsky.social Dawn Fratini @gilscott-heroin.bsky.social @labuzamovies.bsky.social @pmonticone.bsky.social and I can tell you all out our adventures with gatekeeping, access, etc.

SCMS Board expresses concern over cuts at Academy Film Archive & Margaret Herrick Library. These cuts risk compromising film preservation, research, and documentation of Hollywood's history. We urge AMPAS to reaffirm its commitment to preserving global film history. Full letter: bit.ly/3OfUWX1

the only starter pack you'll ever need. go.bsky.app/BRFb4eo

I'm very excited to share that my department at USC is hosting a new conference this summer - The Hollywood Conference! Please spread the word and come join us in LA (the obviously spot for this) next July. www.thehollywoodconference.com/cfp

yes www.thenation.com/article/poli...

I'm not a frequent reader of activist tactics - but I found this piece very clarifying, especially his points about the power not of protests or reason but of mass noncooperation. dangerous, messy, and very effective. wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/10-t...

Made a starter pack of media industry scholars: go.bsky.app/61pDASR Please let me know if you want to be added (or removed)!

Just a bit more self-promotion here, but if you use the code RUP30 you will get 30% off on the Rutgers website!