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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Maggie Hennefeld @hennefem.bsky.social · 4d

Hot off the press!! I was delighted to contribute this Blu-ray review of Wonder Dogs! to the new issue of FIAF's Journal of Film Preservation. 🐕‍🦺🎞💿 I'm usually a cat person, but couldn't resist the *siren bark* of these 23 dog-forward silent films w/ gorgeous music 🎶📀

www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/00...

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group SCMS @nontheatricalscms.bsky.social · 11d

CFP — “The Amateur Reconsidered: Media, Labor, Publics”
Spectator Special Issue (Volume 46.2 Fall 2026)

Essay submissions due December 1, 2025.

See images with alt text here and in thread for CFP details. 1/

Spectator Special Issue: The Amateur Reconsidered: Media, Labor, Publics (Volume 46.2 Fall 2026)

The category of the “amateur” has long been marked by instability. Etymologically linked to love (amator), the amateur historically signified passion and connoisseurship, yet in modern usage it has oscillated between devotion and dilettantism. This semantic tension has shaped how amateur practice has been positioned within aesthetic discourse, labor history, and the formation of the public sphere.
Cinema and media studies has repeatedly returned to amateurism to both dismiss it and laud its critical and creative possibilities. Accounts of home movies and small-gauge film cultures once considered them part of the marginalia of personal or domestic life, but scholarship has since demonstrated their aesthetic, social, and historical significance. Scholarship, including Patricia Zimmermann’s foundational work, has situated amateur media within broader institutional and discursive frameworks, from the formation of aesthetic norms in clubs and contests to the intersections of labor history, expertise, and the public/private divide. Simultaneously, amateur practice has been examined as a counter-aesthetic and an alternative mode of production, as in Maya Deren’s “Amateur Versus Professional” (1959), which framed amateur film as resistant to the industrial logics of Hollywood. Yet amateurism has also been understood as politically mobilized: Soviet avant-garde circles and interwar Japanese movements such as Prokino envisioned the amateur as a figure of collectivism, workers’ culture, and social transformation. These diverse trajectories indicate that amateurism has never been a singular phenomenon, but rather a contested and heterogeneous category that both reflects and unsettles the boundaries of cultural production and consumption.

At a moment when digital platforms both amplify non-professional production and intensify regimes of credentialization, amateurism demands renewed critical scrutiny. How might the consideration of amateur practice illuminate shifting conceptions of authorship, expertise, and creativity? In what ways does amateurism negotiate or contest the professionalization of cultural life? And how might the figure of the amateur reframe our understandings of mediation, publicness, and the politics of work and play?

This special issue of Spectator seeks contributions that interrogate amateurism as a theoretical and historical category across media forms and cultural contexts. We welcome essays that draw from diverse archives and methodologies, including studies of amateur film and video, domestic and vernacular media, digital platforms, and transnational amateur practices.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Histories and theories of amateur media
Digital platforms and amateur media
Amateur media in a transnational/global context
The politics of amateurism
The aesthetics of amateur media
Leisure, hobbies, audienceship, and labor
Home movies
Fandom
Preservation and archival practices regarding amateur media
Pedagogical approaches to amateur media
Book reviews of recent scholarship examining amateur media

Deadline for Submission: December 1, 2025

Spectator is a biannual publication by the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Division of Cinema & Media Studies.
Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to:

Issue Editor: Wakae Nakane
USC School of Cinematic Arts
900 W. 34th St. Suite 320
Los Angeles, CA-90089
wnakane@usc.edu

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · 19d

But the boxing in is also a policy choice, made by the town of Chapel Hill in partnership with other local governments. (And we're much less dense than our peer college towns. At Charlottesville's density, we'd have close to 100K population). triangleblogblog.com/2024/03/08/o...

Orange County Board of County Commissioners approve WASMPBA, setting a new path for land use in the county - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Joel Neville Anderson @joelnanderson.bsky.social · 26d

Research Assistant: Investigating Women’s Labor Migrations in the Early Film Industry disabroad.org/course/resea... @clarasilentfilms.bsky.social

Research Assistant: Investigating Women's Labor Migrations in the Early Film Industry

Before Hollywood's studio system emerged, the American film industry flourished on the East Coast, maintaining vibrant exchanges with European cinema. The silent era offered women surprisingly extensi...

disabroad.org

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · 29d

Computers putting college graduates out of work in ... checks date ... 1964.

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Sep 24

Stormwater is a community problem that requires community solutions. We can address it, and still build more homes in Chapel Hill.
triangleblogblog.com/2025/09/24/w...

We can address stormwater while building more homes - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Sep 15

I’m in the room! More CHC folks should go to @yimbytown.bsky.social.

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Sep 2

give.uga.edu/funders/insi...

Restore and Relive an Athens Treasure

Celebrate 40 years of Athens, GA: Inside/Out — give today to help preserve the original film for future generations.

give.uga.edu

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

@jenniferpete @jenniferpete.bsky.social · Sep 1

John Cassavettes and Gena Rowlands house is for sale. A time capsule. www.redfin.com/CA/Los-Angel...

7917 Woodrow Wilson Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90046 - 5 beds/5 baths

(TheMLS) For Sale: 5 beds, 5 baths ∙ 4305 sq. ft. ∙ 7917 Woodrow Wilson Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90046 ∙ $4,995,000 ∙ MLS# 25577301 ∙ On the market for the first time in over six decades, this soulful 5-be...

www.redfin.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

The HoMER Network @homer-network.bsky.social · Sep 1

Dear Homerites, Please join us for a webinar from TAP (The Audience Project research group, Oxford Brookes University) on
Fri. 12 Sept. 2025 at 12-1pm: "The Enchanting Kinora: Researching Edwardian Audiences," by
Prof. Elizabeth Evans, University of Nottingham. Abstract & link in comments.

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Dan Streible 💃🏻🌲🔔 @orphanfilm.bsky.social · Jun 21

CFP: Call for Proposals to present at the 2026 Orphan Film Symposium, "Crisis and Community,"
April 8-11, 2026, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio. wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Aug 20

Same was true in Chapel Hill in 1986. triangleblogblog.com/2023/02/02/i...

It’s Groundhog Day in Chapel Hill, and we might finally be able to leave Punxsutawney - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Aug 17

My dog’s name is Bela!

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

dead manu walking @profchander.bsky.social · Aug 17

very much saddened to learn that bucknell university press will be closing. they took a chance on my first book when other presses said it was too short or too narrowly focused on minor authors.

www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

Letter | Bucknell University Press to Close

This should alarm university presses nationwide, writes Aníbal González-Pérez.

www.chronicle.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · Aug 13

Delighted to have interviewed with WBUR's Meghna Chakrabarti "On Point." First half discusses the historical intricacies of the US public media ecosystem. Second half I tried to detail how the GOP rescission bill was designed to attack democratic media.

Can public media survive?

The U.S. Congress cut federal funding for public media, shuttering the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. What does that mean for the future of local news across the country?

www.wbur.org

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · Aug 13

Chapel Hill is getting denser, as anyone who has driven around the town can attest to. That is a good thing, given our need for more housing and the constraints imposed by a nearly built-out town and the rural buffer.

Chapel Hill Has Densified from the Outside In: Why That’s a Concern - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Maggie Hennefeld @hennefem.bsky.social · Aug 10

Good news, my #SilentFilm friends!!! Bonn Stummfilmtage is globally streaming daily screenings with original music! Today's selection is FORGOTTEN FACES (1928) -- w/ accompaniment by the always brilliant @megmorley.bsky.social 🎶😍🎞️

stummfilmtage.culturebase.org#video-anchor

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group SCMS @nontheatricalscms.bsky.social · Aug 8

Check out this list of 2025 National Film Preservation Fund grant recipients! Home movies, amateur films, travelogues, 'useful' media, and more. A treasure trove of #nontheatricalmedia! 🤩

@orphanfilm.bsky.social @amianet.bsky.social

amianet.bsky.social @amianet.bsky.social · Aug 6

Congratulations to the 2025 NFPF grant recipients!
https://loom.ly/C4q1Scs

National Film Preservation Foundation: 2025 Federal Grant Winners

www.filmpreservation.org

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Aug 8

As a Durham, NC native, Yonah is familiar with the success of Chapel Hill Transit's fare free bus system (which is a really a pre-paid system, with UNC-CH and local gov'ts supporting the system). What role should large employers play in subsidizing transit, and what form should it take?

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Damon Seils @damonseils.bsky.social · Aug 5

Now catch the GoTriangle 400/405 every 15 minutes on weekdays between Chapel Hill and Durham, the latest #transit service improvements to be supported by funds from the voter-approved half-cent sales tax transit and the Orange County and Durham County Transit Plans. 🙌🏻

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · Aug 4

Blog bloggers love the 405. Many of us have ridden it into Durham for events as it rolls right out of central Carrboro. Now it and the 400 are getting even better! 🚍

Fast and Frequent Bus Service Comes to Chapel Hill and Durham - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Aug 5

Do you know any more about the story behind this "Dolby Atmos" screening of The Wizard Of Oz? Seems odd that these two "new" (?) versions are appearing at the same time. movingimage.org/event/the-wi...

The Wizard of Oz – Museum of the Moving Image

The yellow brick road has lost none of its allegorical power—or visual splendor—nearly ninety years later. The Wizard of Oz is particularly overwhelming as a big-screen experience, its fantasy world t...

movingimage.org

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Alisa Perren @aperren.bsky.social · Aug 4

My department @utexasrtf.bsky.social is hiring a TT faculty member in media studies. We are looking for faculty who conduct broad-based research in the following areas: media history and industries associated with film, television, and/or digital media.

More here: apply.interfolio.com/171261

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Karen Daniels @karenedaniels.bsky.social · Aug 4

This is great news! triangleblogblog.com/2025/08/04/f...
Now #gotriangle needs to work on the Chapel Hill-Raleigh connection as well: the CRX is so much more poorly served than the DRX as to be a joke. Improve the service, and the riders will follow.

Fast and Frequent Bus Service Comes to Chapel Hill and Durham - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Reposted by Martin L. Johnson

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · Aug 4

Blog bloggers love the 405. Many of us have ridden it into Durham for events as it rolls right out of central Carrboro. Now it and the 400 are getting even better! 🚍

Fast and Frequent Bus Service Comes to Chapel Hill and Durham - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Martin L. Johnson @martinlj.bsky.social · Aug 4

Fixed!

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