We invite you to join us for the 2022 SCMS Conference in Chicago! The conference will be held in two blocks: a virtual pre-conference on Friday, February 25 - Saturday, February 26, 2022, and then a four-day in-person conference on Thursday, March 31 - Sunday, April 3, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois at the Fairmont Hotel Millennium Park and Swissôtel.

All current SCMS members will be granted access to the virtual pre-conference. No conference registration is required. Your membership dues allow you to attend all meetings and to participate in or join the audience for Seminars. You will receive an email invitation to participate/attend the pre-conference and seminars

*Conference presenters must join or renew their SCMS membership AND register for the conference by Friday, January 28, 2022, to be included in the final printed program.

A note about this year’s registration rates: The SCMS Board of Directors has decided to modify conference rates this year to better serve our membership and support our small office staff as they prepare a virtual pre-conference and on-site conference in 2022.

Unfortunately, an early bird registration period is logistically impossible this year. While rates will remain consistent throughout the registration period, they are significantly lower than the traditional "full price" rate and more aligned with the "early bird " rates from previous years. As with membership dues, an optional “Supporter” registration rate will be available for members wishing to help SCMS subsidize a reduced registration rate for students, precariously employed, and retired members.

Travel discounts are available for the 2022 conference! Check out our website for more information and to access the discount codes. As more deals are available, the website will be updated so please check back!

Ten seminar topics will be offered at the 2022 SCMS virtual pre-conference. Seminars are designed to provide members with different options for productive conversations about scholarly topics.

The virtual pre-conference is a benefit of membership this year, so all members are encouraged to attend. Seminars are not subject to the one-role policy, so you can be involved in a seminar and a panel, workshop, or roundtable.

Seminar topics and more information regarding registration will be circulated in December. Please note the following dates for seminar registration, coming soon -

Seminar Registration Opens for Student Participants: Tuesday, December 7, 10:00 AM Central Time

Seminar Registration Closes for Student Participants: Thursday, December 9, 5:00 PM Central Time

Seminar Registration Opens for All Participants and Auditors: Friday, December 10, 10:00 AM Central Time

If you are interested, please fill out the form no later than Friday, December 17, 5:00PM CT.

The 2022 SCMS Conference will be held in two blocks: a virtual pre-conference on February 25-26, 2022, and then a four-day in-person conference on Thursday, March 31 - Sunday, April 3, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois with sessions at the Fairmont Hotel Millennium Park and the Swissôtel. For more information about the annual conference, please visit our conference FAQs.

200 North Columbus Drive

Chicago, Illinois 60601

United States

Centrally located just steps from Millennium & Grant Parks, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the museum campus, world-class theater, and Lake Michigan, the Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park offers luxuriously appointed guest rooms with sweeping park, lake, and city views.

An ADA-compliant hotel, the Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park has been recognized for exceptional service and amenities on the Conde Nast Traveler's Top 15 Hotels in Chicago and Travel & Leisure Magazine's Top 500 Hotels List.

The Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park is Green Seal Certified and adheres to environmental standards of energy efficiency, water conservation, recycling, and waste reduction. Green Seal is a non-profit organization that develops sustainability standards and programs that empower consumers to make eco-friendly choices.

For more information about this year’s conference hotel, room rates, reservation procedures, covid considerations, travel discounts, and more, please visit the 2022 hotel information page.

SCMS is now accepting exhibitors and advertisers for SCMS 2022! Please click HERE for more information about exhibits and HERE for advertising.

Entering our 63rd year, the Society for Cinema & Media Studies serves to promote all areas of cinema and media studies within universities and two-and four-year colleges; to encourage and reward excellence in scholarship and writing; to facilitate and improve the teaching of cinema and media studies as disciplines; to advance multi-cultural awareness and interaction; to serve its members' professional needs and concerns; to strengthen the ties between the academic community and those who interact with it, from the media industries to the government to the public at large; and to promote the preservation of our film, television, and media heritage. The annual SCMS Conference Exhibit Area is an integral part of spreading the word to our members of the size and scope of the academic publishing industry as well as other publishers, institutions, and companies which serve the cinema and media studies community available in the US and around the world.

The Exhibit Hall is a major attraction for attendees. In addition to our exhibit area, your organization also has an opportunity to purchase advertising in the conference program. The opportunities to put your organization in front of a membership of over 3,000 professionals from 38 nations are varied and many.

In a survey of 2019 SCMS annual meeting attendees, over 90% stated that they visited the exhibit hall.

The latest issue of Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (JCMS) is now available!

Complete issues with full-text articles (from 1999 to present) are available for members to read online at Project Muse. Click here to read the latest volume of Journal of Cinema and Media Studies online.

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies is published quarterly by Michigan Publishing, in cooperation with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Members of the society receive access to the journal as one of the benefits of membership.

September 14, 2021

Broadcasting in the Public Interest

The collaboration between Aca-Media and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting continues with episode 4 of our special series “Presenting the Past: Exploring the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.”

This episode of “Presenting the Past” features Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President John F. Kennedy from 1961 until 1963. Minow would become a key figure in the establishment of public broadcasting in the U.S., and in this conversation, he reflects on his early vision for public service television..

September 30, 2021

We’re back with a great bleeping episode! First, we interview Dimitrios Latsis, head of SCMS’s Scholarly Interest Group Coordinating Committee about the role of SIGs within the Society. Then we take on Rolling Stone’s list of “100 Best Sitcoms of All Time” with an all-star roundtable of comedy scholars that is even more entertaining than the sitcoms they are talking about. And Chris and Michael banter about pretty much every bleeping thing you can think of.

Listen to all new episodes here.

The Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Fieldnotes project is pleased to present new video interviews with Steven Cohan and Jan-Christopher Horak. Sincere thanks to Matthew Ogonoski for his ongoing administrative and editing assistance and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for archiving Fieldnotes’ interviews.

In the interest of making content as accessible as possible, we have also posted 19 additional transcripts. Thanks to Mike Zryd, David Han, and York University for their help here. Eventually, transcripts of every interview will be available.

interviewed by Will Scheibel

interviewed by Heather Jean Hendershot

See all interviews here.

Join the global generosity movement on #GivingTuesday, November 30th. Any contributions will go directly to travel grants for graduate students and un/underemployed colleagues as well as dependent care grants for our members. Our goal this year is to secure 100 gifts and to increase our participation. No amount is too small and every act of generosity counts.

EDIT Media is requesting your help in distributing a survey to your undergraduate and graduate students who are taking courses in film and media studies at your institution. Data collected from this survey will be used to build tools to support equity, diversity, and inclusivity in film and media studies instruction and professional development.

More information about the researchers, goals, and processes involved in this study can be found here.

We would also appreciate your sharing this email and survey link with other faculty who might be interested in helping us spread the word to their students. The deadline for students to complete this survey is December 15th.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) invites applications for the 2021-22 round of the Public Scholars program, which supports the creation of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities written for the broad public. The program welcomes projects in all areas of the humanities, regardless of geographic or chronological focus. The resulting books might present a narrative history, tell the stories of important individuals, analyze significant texts, provide a synthesis of ideas, revive interest in a neglected subject, or examine the latest thinking on a topic. Books supported by this program must be written in a readily accessible style, must clearly explain specialized terms and concepts, and must frame their topics to have wide appeal. They should also be carefully researched and authoritative, making appropriate use of primary and/or secondary sources and showing appropriate familiarity with relevant existing publications or scholarship. Applications to write books directed primarily to professional scholars are not suitable.

The Public Scholars program is open to independent writers as well as applicants with an institutional affiliation. It offers a stipend of $5,000 per month for a period of six to twelve months. The maximum stipend is $60,000 for a twelve-month period. Applicants must have U.S. citizenship or residency in the U.S. for the three years prior to the application deadline. In addition, they must have previously published a book with a university or commercial press or at least three articles or essays in general-interest publications reaching a large audience.

The deadline to apply is December 15, 2021.

More here.