This semester, I am teaching undergraduates Intro to Film and Video Analysis as a TA for Professor Kartik Nair! I am very excited. I did not attend a Film undergraduate program, so I don’t know much of the terminology of film theory and film history. Additionally, I feel lucky to continue to work alongside Kartik. For the past year, I have taken two film studies classes with him. As a result, my writing and film analysis have improved exponentially.
I will take you on my journey through this semester in the coming weeks. I will write weekly, sharing my learnings and reflections on discussions with my students (if it applies). I hope to cultivate a rich and deeply inspiring atmosphere between me and others in the class.
So much academic scholarship is hidden behind paywalls, and its language is inaccessible. I will share PDFs of our readings and clips that connect them to broader film theory and history discourses. In doing so, I hope you will learn and gain some appreciation for film scholarship and criticism, as I am also learning and gaining perspective.
Please stay tuned.
In the meantime, I am sharing some quotes and articles that have held me so tenderly recently:
“Because anybody that has any talent in this room is lonely. Whether you can sing, whether you can shoot a basketball, whether you can play football, I don’t care what it is […] if you got a talent, you’re lonely. And so what you want to do is go on with your life. Because at some point you’re gonna find somebody who is as lonely as you and then you will build your community.” — Nikki Giovanni in Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project 1
“Thank You for Loving Me Long and Loud and Deep and Dear” - by Camille Bacon and Janée-Daria Strand for SEEN
“When we dance together, we breathe together. When we breathe together, we extend one another’s aliveness. An Duplan suggests that “to locate liberation, one has to locate a third space. This alter-space is not ‘outside of,’ ‘away from,’ or ‘other than our present world. Instead, it is an intensification, or deepening, of mundane reality.”9
I ask: What’s more mundane than breath? And in the same gesture, what is more miraculous than a sisterhood that makes breath more possible?” — Camille Bacon to Janée-Daria Strand
“What loneliness does to your body and brain” by Hilary Brueck and Annie Fu
“Biologically, loneliness is much like hunger or thirst. It’s a useful stress response that helps us survive by putting the body on high alert. But it is also a complicated biological process that can create a chain reaction of serious health issues if it’s not adequately addressed.”
The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective
Universal care: “the ideal of a society in which care is placed front and centre on every scale of life. Universal care means that care — in all its various manifestations — is our priority not only in the domestic sphere but in all spheres: from our kinship groups and communities to our states and planet. Prioritising and working towards a sense of universal care — and making this common sense — is necessary for the cultivation of a caring politics, fulfilling lives, and a sustainable world.” (p. 19)
Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection by Mimi Zhu
“In its own erratic ways, anxiety is another ball of energy that brings us closer to our care. If we discern within our anxiety the small things that we can control, then we can urgently act on those things. I refuse to believe that we are doomed because our collective anxiety shows that we care. I refuse to succumb to despair because our worry shows me that we no longer wish to be controlled. I believe that our connected awareness and collective action can take us there. While we don’t know everything that the future holds. All that we know is what we care about and how we lovingly choose to hold it close.” (Zhu, pp. 55)
Take good care!
Transcription of this quote from a July review of Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project in SEEN issue 0016 by Beandrea July
congrats on your new role and continuing to be in study with fellow film folks! and thanks for sharing what's kept you held. there is so much faith in connection tying together each of those quotes, which i'm finding inspiring while working thru the stillness of winter.