Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:36:55 +0000

Kino-Eye Center President Cesare Wright recently presented a conference paper at the 2012 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. Featuring such noted film scholars as Bill Nichols and Vivian Sobchack, the SCMS conference is the leading academic forum for discussion of wide ranging topics in film and media, and the conference supports a distinctly Humanities centered approach. Wright’s paper, “Finding the ‘truth’” – Actuality and Rhetoric in the Documentary Tradition”, explores associations of fact, actuality, and indexicality in documentary, and is informed by the ongoing research in visual and cultural studies promoted by the Kino-Eye Center. Included is a focus on the cinema of Werner Herzog, who challenges traditional boundaries of fiction and documentary, in search of what he refers to as the “ecstatic truth” – a deeper mode of “truth” that may be reached only through “fabrication and imagination and stylization”.

For a draft of the conference paper:
Finding the “Truth” – Rhetoric and Actuality in the Documentary Tradition

Rice University Centennial Courses

KinoEye — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:39:24 +0000

In honor of the Rice University Centennial Celebration, the Kino-Eye Center will support two courses in Film and Visual Arts at Rice University during the Spring 2012 semester, by providing production equipment and a tax-exempt fundraising sponsorship. Cesare Wright (2003 Rice Alum and President of the Kino-Eye Center) will teach Auteur Film Theory and Advanced Cinematography and Sound.

Auteur Film Theory is the first university course to comparatively explore the works of filmmakers Werner Herzog, Rob Zombie, and Dario Argento, in relation to an overarching theme of “ecstatic truth” that is traditioned by classical theories of the sublime in art.

After completing undergraduate degrees in Anthropology, Art & Art History, and Visual Arts at the Rice in 2003, Cesare Wright completed his MFA in the prestigious Cinematic Arts program at Univ. of Southern California, before moving on to the Univ. of Rochester for his PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies. Working with his mentor and fellow Kino-Eye Center director, Prof. Brian Huberman, he has formulated a new Advanced Cinematography and Sound course that is specifically designed to supplement the curriculum of the Visual Arts department and prepare Rice students for graduate school and/or professional work in media.

Deconstructing Literacy

KinoEye — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:23:10 +0000

In May 2011, Education Director Shelea Majors and two other researchers from the Univ. of Rochester implemented a limited pilot of one phase of a literacy intervention that is based in a new model of education theory, which recognized literacy as inherently multi-modal, culturally situated, and power laden. Kino-Eye Center president Cesare Wright worked with the researchers to create a short documentary film about the initiative. The Kino-Eye Center is currently sponsoring research and applying for private and federal grant funding, in order to secure the resources to further develop the Deconstructing Literacy project and create an intervention model that may be implemented on a national scale.

The Deconstructing Literacy program emphasizes the value of the pre-existing literacy practices that students bring to the classroom. More specifically, the program allows students the space to use a wide range of literacy practices (particularly New Media modes), in order to bridge a pervasive gap in the comprehensibility and accessibility of expressly academic literacy.

Watch the Deconstructing Literacy mini-documentary: