Seth Barry Watter
@sbwatter.bsky.social
new york, ny | author of The Human Figure on Film (SUNY, 2023) and of articles on film, media, the human sciences, psychiatry
scholarly writing here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth-Watter
scholarly writing here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth-Watter
Pinned
Seth Barry Watter
@sbwatter.bsky.social
· Sep 22
Seth WATTER | New York University, New York City | NYU | Department of Media, Culture, and Communication | Research profile
Seth WATTER of New York University, New York City (NYU) | Read 14 publications | Contact Seth WATTER
www.researchgate.net
I'm in the process of porting all my stuff over from Academia dot edu to ResearchGate, at least until I can get my own website back up and running: you can now find most of my writing (academic or otherwise) over at www.researchgate.net/profile/Seth...
I just saw that the great Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai has passed away. Ichikawa's Conflagration, while a mediocre film, has one of Nakadai's finest performances as the disabled student Togari. His halting, twisted walk in the schoolyard has to be one of the most striking entrances in cinema.
November 11, 2025 at 12:14 PM
I just saw that the great Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai has passed away. Ichikawa's Conflagration, while a mediocre film, has one of Nakadai's finest performances as the disabled student Togari. His halting, twisted walk in the schoolyard has to be one of the most striking entrances in cinema.
If I had to live in any American city other than New York, I'm starting to think it should be Baltimore
November 10, 2025 at 9:08 PM
If I had to live in any American city other than New York, I'm starting to think it should be Baltimore
I don't know if it ever occurred to the writer of this that older editions are just nicer, feel better in the hands, have better covers, heavier type, etc. I would prefer a Penguin Classics from my childhood over a recent printing any day, even if the pages are a bit yellowed.
Hang on, when did reading become so performative (and the latest ick)?
Whether its highly curated Instagram accounts or the new interior trend for ‘book nooks’, reading show offs are everywhere. But, maybe in our post-literate society, we could turn something cringe int...
www.the-independent.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
I don't know if it ever occurred to the writer of this that older editions are just nicer, feel better in the hands, have better covers, heavier type, etc. I would prefer a Penguin Classics from my childhood over a recent printing any day, even if the pages are a bit yellowed.
Because the two really do belong together
November 8, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Because the two really do belong together
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
November 5, 2025 at 12:45 PM
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
This is already impossible to find in Manhattan. A colleague appears to have bought the last copy at the nearest Gristedes (appropriately enough, one of the businesses that has vowed to leave New York if Mamdani won the election)
November 5, 2025 at 6:33 PM
This is already impossible to find in Manhattan. A colleague appears to have bought the last copy at the nearest Gristedes (appropriately enough, one of the businesses that has vowed to leave New York if Mamdani won the election)
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
November 5, 2025 at 12:21 AM
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
Mamdani has so completely changed the horizon of expectations this year that I'm struggling to recapture a moment in my life when I still thought that Ramos would be a great candidate
November 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Mamdani has so completely changed the horizon of expectations this year that I'm struggling to recapture a moment in my life when I still thought that Ramos would be a great candidate
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
November 5, 2025 at 12:45 PM
For anyone in or around the College Park area, I'll be speaking on the topic of "Research and Surveillance in a Total Institution" at the University of Maryland on this Friday November 7, 1pm; details below
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
November 5, 2025 at 12:21 AM
My school just gave me a bunch of money to do research in Omaha and Lincoln in January. What does one do in Nebraska in January?
Now that Tetsuya Yamagami is on trial for killing Shinzo Abe, I highly recommend Masao Adachi's film Revolution+1, which I wrote about back in 2023 for Tribune:
A Ball of Resentment
<cite>Revolution+1</cite> cleverly uses the story of Shinzo Abe’s assassin to chronicle the ills of contemporary Japan.
tribunemag.co.uk
October 30, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Now that Tetsuya Yamagami is on trial for killing Shinzo Abe, I highly recommend Masao Adachi's film Revolution+1, which I wrote about back in 2023 for Tribune:
A new twist in the AI wars: Has anyone had the experience of reading handwritten answers on an exam, yet still feeling as if they were composed by GPT? I am wondering if students would go through the trouble of generating answers to hypothetical questions in advance and memorizing them for a test...
October 27, 2025 at 4:57 PM
A new twist in the AI wars: Has anyone had the experience of reading handwritten answers on an exam, yet still feeling as if they were composed by GPT? I am wondering if students would go through the trouble of generating answers to hypothetical questions in advance and memorizing them for a test...
We're all set for Halloween here with some origami models courtesy of Oriol Esteve and Jo Nakashima
October 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
We're all set for Halloween here with some origami models courtesy of Oriol Esteve and Jo Nakashima
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
The White House movie theater over the years. In the East Wing, demolition imminent. The first film screened there was D. W. Griffith's racist epic Birth of a Nation in 1915. Jimmy Carter watched 480 films there, the most of any president: letterboxd.com/jfrankenstei...
October 23, 2025 at 4:14 AM
The White House movie theater over the years. In the East Wing, demolition imminent. The first film screened there was D. W. Griffith's racist epic Birth of a Nation in 1915. Jimmy Carter watched 480 films there, the most of any president: letterboxd.com/jfrankenstei...
If Marie Antoinette were queen, we'd be eating cake
October 23, 2025 at 3:43 PM
If Marie Antoinette were queen, we'd be eating cake
College profs are still doing battle with the forces of GPT, but at least we'll never have to deal with the moral problem of "67"
October 21, 2025 at 6:43 PM
College profs are still doing battle with the forces of GPT, but at least we'll never have to deal with the moral problem of "67"
There is nothing like having a child of one's own to make one realize how limited and provincial (because based on oneself) our views of childhood really are. Every child is an unknown universe waiting to be discovered.
October 17, 2025 at 1:37 PM
There is nothing like having a child of one's own to make one realize how limited and provincial (because based on oneself) our views of childhood really are. Every child is an unknown universe waiting to be discovered.
Aspirations: "He led an idle, useless existence and spent most of his time locked in his study, imitating the songs of starlings, the crowing of cocks, etc., and writing so-called libertine verse." (Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Golovlyov Family)
October 4, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Aspirations: "He led an idle, useless existence and spent most of his time locked in his study, imitating the songs of starlings, the crowing of cocks, etc., and writing so-called libertine verse." (Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Golovlyov Family)
I've long been a tremendous admirer of The Cremator (do most cinephiles have a romance with the Czech New Wave at some point?), so I'm pretty excited to finally see some of Herz's other work:
The Gothic Visions of Juraj Herz - Metrograph
A titan of the Czechoslovak New Wave, a lightning rod for controversy following the release of his 1969 black comedy The Cremator—who, notwithstanding that film’s ban by the Communist regime, continue...
metrograph.com
October 4, 2025 at 4:15 PM
I've long been a tremendous admirer of The Cremator (do most cinephiles have a romance with the Czech New Wave at some point?), so I'm pretty excited to finally see some of Herz's other work:
This new statistic saying only 16% of Americans read for pleasure reminds me of a class the crime writer Lawrence Block once taught on "reading for pleasure." Probably most of us would benefit from such a class, perverse as it is to think that pleasure is a skill we must nourish and develop.
October 3, 2025 at 6:20 PM
This new statistic saying only 16% of Americans read for pleasure reminds me of a class the crime writer Lawrence Block once taught on "reading for pleasure." Probably most of us would benefit from such a class, perverse as it is to think that pleasure is a skill we must nourish and develop.
I've noticed that hardly any job postings seem to ask anymore for "evidence of teaching effectiveness" (course or peer evaluations, usually). Did committees ultimately decide that this was too humiliating, or have they just found the undergraduate's solution of using RateMyProfessor instead?
October 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
I've noticed that hardly any job postings seem to ask anymore for "evidence of teaching effectiveness" (course or peer evaluations, usually). Did committees ultimately decide that this was too humiliating, or have they just found the undergraduate's solution of using RateMyProfessor instead?
Reposted by Seth Barry Watter
People in the Seattle/Tacoma area: I'll be reprising my talk on animal research films for the Tacoma Film Festival on October 12th and then introducing Ted Kennedy's experimental doc B.F. Skinner Plays Himself afterwards. Swing by and say "hi!"
grandcinema.com/movie/free-f...
grandcinema.com/movie/free-f...
Free Film Talk: Through the Image of an Animal
Join us for a free film talk in The Grand Cinema Lounge presented by Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, associate professor in film studies at Seattle University.
Comparisons between humans and animals are f...
grandcinema.com
September 29, 2025 at 5:29 PM
People in the Seattle/Tacoma area: I'll be reprising my talk on animal research films for the Tacoma Film Festival on October 12th and then introducing Ted Kennedy's experimental doc B.F. Skinner Plays Himself afterwards. Swing by and say "hi!"
grandcinema.com/movie/free-f...
grandcinema.com/movie/free-f...
Two new job postings in the Film and Media Studies program at Hunter College: one in Film Production, one in Journalism. The production job:
Jobs | City University of New York
cuny.jobs
September 27, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Two new job postings in the Film and Media Studies program at Hunter College: one in Film Production, one in Journalism. The production job:
This may be the best title of a book ever. Imagine if all titles were equally descriptive: "Academic Monograph with Tedious Descriptions of Gothic Architecture." "Collection of Previously Published Essays with No Unity Among Them or Discernible Point."
September 24, 2025 at 3:38 PM
This may be the best title of a book ever. Imagine if all titles were equally descriptive: "Academic Monograph with Tedious Descriptions of Gothic Architecture." "Collection of Previously Published Essays with No Unity Among Them or Discernible Point."
Really sad to hear that Bluestockings is closing for good. It was one of the first places I started going to in New York, 20 years ago. Indeed some of these bookmarks are starting show their age, much like me.
September 22, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Really sad to hear that Bluestockings is closing for good. It was one of the first places I started going to in New York, 20 years ago. Indeed some of these bookmarks are starting show their age, much like me.