Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group SCMS
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nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group SCMS
@nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
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Official page of the Nontheatrical Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group of @SCMStudies. Sign up for our newsletter!
https://necs.org/news/calls-for-papers/new-newsletter-from-scms-nontheatrical-film-and-media-studies-sig
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nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Now available online!

A CENTURY IN 16MM: THE REMAKING OF CINEMA (eds. Gregory A. Waller + Haidee Wasson) from @oxfordacademic.bsky.social. Featuring 23 essays on diverse uses and applications of the small gauge format worldwide!

Available in print in early 2026.

academic.oup.com/book/61621
November 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
More CFP details in alt-text visual.
Submissions should be e-mailed directly to the issue editor. Manuscripts should include the title of the contribution, name of author(s), postal address, e-mail address, and a phone number for the author who will work with the editor on revisions. Contributions should not exceed 5,000 words. Please include a brief abstract and author bio for publicity purposes. Articles submitted should not be under consideration by any other journals. Authors should send copies of their work via e-mail as electronic attachments. Files should be formatted in the latest version of Microsoft Word and endnotes should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. Upon acceptance, a detailed format/style sheet will be forwarded to all contributors as to the requirements for the submission of images and text.
October 14, 2025 at 1:23 AM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
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
October 14, 2025 at 1:15 AM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Some exciting books from @ucpress.bsky.social of interest to our community are dropping this fall!

The Development Film in the Americas by Molly Geidel +
Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq by Mona Damluji

#FilmSky #AcademicSky
Cover of book: The Development Film in the Americas by Molly Geidel Cover for book: Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq by Mona Damluji
August 19, 2025 at 6:33 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
"A geographical film is cinema as much as Ben Hur. A film designed to teach children the alphabet has as much claim to be considered cinema as a grandiose production with psychological pretensions."

— Jean Renoir, 1974
July 2, 2025 at 5:00 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
New issue of journal SCREEN includes essay by Georgie Carr on recruitment films produced, distributed, and exhibited by police forces in U.K. schools during 1960s and '70s.

"Coercive Cinema Coercive cinema: police film in schools, 1966–75"

doi.org/10.1093/scre...
June 26, 2025 at 8:45 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
New issue of THE MOVING IMAGE dropped a few weeks. It's devoted entirely to #16mm film! #nontheatricalfilm

muse.jhu.edu/issue/54229
May 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Educational film humor via FILM WORLD AND A/V NEWS MAGAZINE, May 1964
April 27, 2025 at 10:18 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Our final sponsored panel of #SCMS25 is coming up at 2:15pm — Sinophone Non-Fiction Media (Q15). Come on down before you go!
#SCMS25 Panel — 6 April, 2:15pm, Q15 Sinophone Non-Fiction Media CHAIR Charles Musser • Yale University CO-CHAIR Victor Fan • King’s College London Ying Qian • Columbia University • “From Marxist Humanism to Cybernetics: Cinema, Scientism and Reform China” Victor Fan • King’s College London • “Platformativity and Moral Residue: Image and Political Engagement Today” Yiman Wang • University of California, Santa Cruz • “Media Studies Goes Environmental: What Chinese Socialist Science Education Film Can Teach Us” Charles Musser • Yale University and Feng Bao • North East Normal University • “Challenges to Creativity and Collaboration: Reflecting on China’s Van Goghs (2016)”
April 6, 2025 at 3:19 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Who's still here and ready to check out our next sponsored panel at 11:00am — "(Un)Natural Ways of Seeing & Systems of Visualization" (P07) chaired by past SIG co-chair @joeginclark.bsky.social! Topics include 🌲, 🌋, canyons, and radar! #SCMS25
#SCMS25 Panel on 6 April at 11am - P07 - (Un)Natural Ways of Seeing & Systems of Visualization CHAIR Joseph Clark • Simon Fraser University Joseph Clark • Simon Fraser University • “Vengeance of the Forest: Labor and the Extractivist Logics of Forestry and Film in the 1930s” Dennis Hippe • Goethe University Frankfurt • “The Cinema Seen from Plate Tectonics: Towards a Volcanological Expert Mode of Viewing” Lauren Knight • University of Toronto and Tero Karppi • University of Toronto • “Guided by Waves: Lidar, Doppler, and a Media Genealogy of Non-Visual Perception” Johnathan Knapp • Wellesley College • “Construction and Destruction: The Visual Culture of Glen Canyon”
April 6, 2025 at 2:55 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Good morning #SCMS25! Our next sponsored panel is at 11am today — L14 — "Cold War Formats: Nontheatrical, Industrial, and Educational Cinemas in the Midcentury" with scholars Gregory Waller, Eli Boonin-Vail, Pedro Noel Doreste Rodríguez, Zoë Druick, and Lisa Rabin!
#SCMS25 panel — 5 April, 11:00am – L14 Cold War Formats Nontheatrical, Industrial, and Educational Cinemas in the Midcentury CHAIR Gregory Waller • Indiana University Bloomington Eli Boonin-Vail • University at Albany • “The Prison-University Industrial Complex: Design for Correction and Film Studies as a Carceral Enterprise” Pedro Noel Doreste Rodríguez • Michigan State University / Diaspora Solidarities Lab • “En arroz y habichuelas: Animating Dissent within the Division of Community Education” Zoë Druick • Simon Fraser University • “Re-Construction Films: The World Bank and the Subjunctive Cinema of ‘Development’” Lisa Rabin • George Mason University • “Screening the Cold War Global Village: Intersecting Mandates in Area Studies, Ethnic Studies and 16mm, 1945–1980”
April 5, 2025 at 2:19 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Hey #SCMS25, our next two sponsored panels (J10 and J13) are both at 6:15pm tonight!

J10 — Useful Media
J13 — Global Nontheatrical Media and the Civic Imaginary

(hey, @scmstudies.bsky.social program committee, we'd like a word with you about this pesky scheduling conflict 😜!)
#SCMS25 Panel Information — 4 April, 6:15pm – J10 Useful Media CHAIR Max Bowens • Harvard University Max Bowens • Harvard University • “Bodycam” Kelsey Cameron • University of South Carolina • “The Media Evidence Industry: Body-Worn Cameras Beyond the Image” Jiwon Park • University of Southern California • “Averting the Coded Gaze? Synthetic Data for Facial Recognition” Rachel Harris • Florida Atlantic University • “Driving the Plot: The Role of Traffic Safety Films in the Development of Israel’s Early Film Industry” #SCMS25 Panel Information — 4 April, 6:15pm – J13 Global Nontheatrical Media and the Civic Imaginary CHAIR Jeff Hughes • Rutgers-Newark, Jacob Burns Film Center Nimish Sarin • University of Wisconsin-Madison • “Filming the ‘Other’ Juteopolis: Labor, Empire, and the Process Genre in Jute (1923)” Minji Kim • University of Southern California • “‘Let’s Plant Trees’: Reforestation and State-Sponsored Documentaries in South Korea” Meghan Romano • University of Toronto • “The Language of the Road and the Language of Cinema: Atlantic Films and Electronics Ltd.” Hui Li • King’s College London • “Science, Art, and Ideology: A Study of Microscopic Images in Hygiene Science Education Films in Maoist China”
April 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Good morning SCMS'ers! Our next sponsored panel takes place at 2:15pm today — "Media and Pedagogy In and Beyond The Classroom" with Charles Acland, Jülide Etem, Ronit Ghosh, and Zach McLane" #SCMS25
SCMS 2025 Panel Information 4 April, 2:15pm – H07 Media and Pedagogy In and Beyond the Classroom Charles Acland • Concordia University • “When Marshall Met the Elmer Gantry of Film Education” Julide Etem • University of Virginia • “Whitewashing through Educational Films: Turkish Erasure and Modernization” Ronit Ghosh • University of Chicago • “Decolonizing the Ear: Radio Pedagogies in Postcolonial India and the Emergence of Modern Bengali Film Song” Zach McLane • University of California, Santa Barbara • “Delinquent Looks: Gaze Detection, Trustworthiness, and the Science of Cheating”
April 4, 2025 at 1:04 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Our first two sponsored panels are this evening (both at 6:15pm). Wish we didn't have to choose! 😭

E11 - ROUNDTABLE: Useful Television: Expanding Understanding of the Medium through Alternative Histories

E16 - Activating Devastation
#SCMS25 information for panels E11 and E16, both taking place at 6:15pm. Panel E11 titled "Roundtable: Useful Television" Panel E16 titled "Activating Devastation"
April 3, 2025 at 5:28 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
For those attending @scmstudies.bsky.social #SCMS2025 in Chicago later this week, we've prepared a list of sponsored and recommended panels. So much great scholarship ahead! Link ⬇️

docs.google.com/document/d/1...
April 1, 2025 at 2:18 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Book we recommend (and previously subject of our graduate reading group!): @katherinegroo.bsky.social's BAD FILM HISTORIES: ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE EARLY ARCHIVE from U of Minnesota Press, 2019.

www.upress.umn.edu/978151790033...
February 27, 2025 at 11:13 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Recommended reading — SPONSORED FILM AND THE OIL INDUSTRY, edited by Marina Dahlquist and Patrick Vonderau. Bloomsbury Press, 2021.
www.bloomsbury.com/us/petrocine...
February 23, 2025 at 3:57 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Recommended read — and currently the subject of our Graduate Student Reading Group — Allyson Nadia Field's UPLIFT CINEMA: THE EMERGENCE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM AND THE POSSIBILITY OF BLACK MODERNITY (2015) from Duke University Press.

www.dukeupress.edu/uplift-cinema
February 20, 2025 at 5:16 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
The votes are in and our new mission statement is live! TY to Jennifer Blaylock, Sophia Gräfe, Tanya Goldman, + Florian Hoof for spearheading the rewrite + several members who provided incisive feedback. We hope this description makes us legible to nonspecialists!
www.cmstudies.org/page/groups_...
February 18, 2025 at 8:05 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
English language translation from EL PAÍS about Packard Humanities Institute's newsreels project in collab with UCLA.

"The recovered #newsreels that recounted the Spanish Civil War in the US: ‘A nation divided threatens to destroy itself’

english-elpais-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/english....
The recovered newsreels that recounted the Spanish Civil War in the US: ‘A nation divided threatens to destroy itself’ A foundation is digitizing the nearly 300 films that the Hearst Corporation recorded during the conflict and were shown in American movie theaters
February 9, 2025 at 10:05 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
In collab. w/ AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) and its journal, The Moving Image, we announce our 3rd annual student essay award. The winning essay will be published (subject to revision) in The Moving Image. Submissions due Feb 28, 2025, via email to nontheatricalessayaward@gmail.com.
Call for Papers: Nontheatrical Student Essay Award 2025 In collaboration w/ AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) & its journal, The Moving Image, the SCMS Nontheatrical Film and Media SIG announces its 3rd annual Nontheatrical Student Essay Award. Designed to recognize outstanding graduate student scholarship founded upon archival nontheatrical research, this award underscores both organizations’ commitment to mentorship and professional development, connecting award-recipients with mentors to guide them through the process of crafting journal-ready manuscripts. The award-winning essay will also be published (subject to revisions) in The Moving Image. Eligibility: Applicants must be enrolled in a recognized graduate program at the time of entry. Submission criteria: • The winning scholarly essay will demonstrate original and critical analysis, clarity of argument and exposition, and engagement with varied source materials related to the study of nontheatrical media (e.g. science film, educational film, home movies, government films, etc.) • Students may submit their own paper, or they may be nominated by an advisor or professor with the author’s consent. In either case, the submitter should provide a short author’s CV. • Papers shall be submitted in English and may not have been published in part or in whole by the time of submission: 4000-6000 words in length (double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt, with 1-inch margins, using the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition), including footnotes/endnotes but excluding bibliography. • Submissions will be evaluated by the governing body of the Nontheatrical Film and Media SIG and editors from The Moving Image. Submissions will be due February 28, 2025 and can be sent to nontheatricalessayaward@gmail.com. The award winner will be contacted in March 2025, and announced at the 2025 SCMS Annual Conference.
February 4, 2025 at 8:30 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
ATTN: @scmstudies.bsky.social members! Along w/ Libraries & Archives SIG, we've organized a field trip to nonprofit video archive @mediaburn.bsky.social on Thursday, April 3 during the conference. Space is limited so spots will be assigned via lottery. Please check SCMS channels for how to sign up!
February 3, 2025 at 8:46 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Book we highly recommend! John Powers's TECHNOLOGY AND THE MAKING OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM CULTURE from Oxford University Press. And don't just take our word for it — it is just received the "best first book award" from @scmstudies.bsky.social!

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
January 30, 2025 at 8:20 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
New #nontheatrical read at the intersection of home movies and Deaf Studies coming this spring!

HOME MOVIES HARDLY SILENT: UNLOCKING OUR DEAF FOLKLIFE FILMS by Matthew L. Malzkuhn + Ted Supalla on Oxford University Press. #ASL

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
January 23, 2025 at 9:59 PM
nontheatricalscms.bsky.social
Recommended reading: Gregory A. Waller's BEYOND THE MOVIE THEATER: SITES, SPONSORS, USES, AUDIENCES (University of California Press, 2023) #openaccess #nontheatricalfilm
www.ucpress.edu/books/beyond...
January 20, 2025 at 10:16 PM