Spring 2021 PhD Program News
The Film and Digital Media PhD Program is overjoyed to present three new graduates.
Francesca Romeo has graduated after presenting her thesis, Towards a Theory of Digital Necropolitics. Dr. Romeo will soon be starting a position as an Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Tampa in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication.
Kara Stone's thesis is entitled Repairing Games: Affect, Psychosocial Disability, and Game Creation. Dr. Stone has accepted a position at the Alberta University of the Arts in the School of Critical and Creative Studies, where she will serve as assistant professor. The app UnearthU, which was the creative part of her dissertation (created with collaborators including FDM PhD student Chris Kerich), is publicly available and was written up in Vice Magazine.
Daniel Rudin has also successfully defended his dissertation Counter/Public: The Politics of Committed Film in the Philippines.
Dissertations will soon be available via the University Library.
UC Press has published the article Field Notes for Future Petropractices: Refiguring Oil and/as Media on Elia Vargas's critical and creative oil work. The essay has been almost 2 years in the making and is a summary of many of the ideas in his future dissertation.
Students Rolando Vargas has been awarded a Chancellor's Dissertation Year fellowship for his work on The Discovery of the Pan American Highway: Kuna Indigenous Media and Knowledge in the Darién, and Darlene Kim has been awarded a one-quarter Dissertation Year Fellowship for her work on Social Imaginaries in Translation: Cold War Americanism and Visuality in U.S.-South Korean State Documentary, 1945–63.
Dorothy Santos's audio piece, Remembering The Pulse was selected in the highly competitive international open call for works at the Rewire 2021 Festival. The department was also proud to recognize Santos with the 2020-21 Film and Digital Media Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
Marilia Kaisar won Best Presentation in the Arts at this year’s Graduate Research Symposium for her presentation “F*cking with the Virtual: Siri, Alexa, Lana and Desire”.