Julie Wyman, who will be promoted to Associate Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies in July 2012, presented her newest film STRONG! on April 12th at the Veteran's Memorial Building for the Davis Feminist Film Festival. It will also be screened on the national PBS documentary series Independent Lens this summer.

This documentary follows the story of Olympian Cheryl Haworth and covers her trials with weightlifting, her struggle with injury and disappointment, and her process of navigating her own body image in a culture where large women are not readily accepted. STRONG! is significantly different from Wyman's previous films, yet it retains a thematic element present in much of Wyman's work. 

Read the full article on the HArCS website. 

On Thursday afternoons in the UC Davis Arboretum, the infectious rhythmic patterns of the Samba School permeate the idyllic scenery.  Passersby may only hear distant echoes of the group's propulsive droning, but upon closer inspection, the energetic playing style is both thoughtful and methodical.  Sponsored by the music department, the ensemble pays homage to the Brazilian Samba School tradition, a multifaceted, colorful endeavor that typically includes elaborate performances of dancing, singing, and drumming.

At the heart of the ensemble is the bateria, a drumming section composed of traditional Brazilian percussion instruments... 

Read the full article on the Humanities Institute website. 

Beth E. Levy, Frontier Figures: American Music and the Mythology of the American West. (University of California Press, 2012).

The UC Press describes Frontier Figures, a new book by Associate Professor of Music Beth Levy, a "tour-de-force exploration of how the American West, both as physical space and inspiration, animated American music." Examining the work of such composers as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Charles Wakefield Cadman, and Arthur Farwell, Levy addresses questions of regionalism, race, and representation as well as changing relationships to the natural world to highlight the intersections between classical music and the diverse worlds of Indians, pioneers, and cowboys. Levy draws from an array of genres to show how different brands of western Americana were absorbed into American culture by way of sheet music, radio, lecture recitals, the concert hall, and film. Frontier Figures is a comprehensive illumination of what the West meant and still means to composers living and writing long after the close of the frontier.

Denise von Glahn praises the book as "an elegant work of depth and breadth that gives generous space to the idea of the American West." Levy received a publication subvention from the American Musicological Society as well as a first-time author's subvention from the Authors Imprint Series at the University of California Press. Authors Imprint is an ongoing effort by the UC Press to support first books by outstanding scholars.

Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies Sarah Pia Anderson directed an episode of the critically-acclaimed new NBC drama series AWAKE. The series features a police officer shuttling between two radically different realities in the aftermath of a tragic car accident. Anderson's episode aired on March 22, 2012.

"Dunkin' Island," a contribution to the "Fifteen Islands for Robert Moses" exhibition by Associate Professor of Theatre & Dance Larry Bogad, was featured in the New York Daily news (see story here) and in the Gothamist (see story here). Greg Sholette, the exhibit's coordinator, described the piece as "one of the biggest hits" of the exhibit.

Jesse Drew, Associate Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies, has a solo show of documentary photography at San Francisco Camerawork, one of the premiere venues for photographic arts on the West Coast. His show, entitled "Winter in America," is a document of political protest across the United States in the mid-1970s. The photographs emerged from Drew's travels across the United States, when he set out to discover whether there was still a utopian pulse to be found in an America wracked by unemployment, oil and gas shortage, and defeat in Vietnam. Drew claims that the photographs "resonate eerily with our current time in many ways."  

See images and more information on Drew's project here. 

Drew was also a featured speaker at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School for Social Research in New York City. The event was part of the "Being the Media" conference held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Paper Tiger Television and the recent acquisition of the Paper Tiger archives by the Fales Library Archive of New York University. The event also included screenings at NY MOMA. Professor Drew has been part of the Paper Tiger group since its early days.