The Video Essay as Form (9/25-9/28)

Catherine Grant, 2025 Humanities Corridor Distinguished Visiting Collaborator

The Screen Cultures working group of the CNY Humanities Corridor is proud to announce a series of events at the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, and Hamilton College with the 2025 Humanities Corridor Distinguished Visiting Collaborator, Professor Catherine Grant, around theme of “The Video Essay as Form,” inspired by philosopher Theodor Adorno’s seminal work, “The Essay as Form.” Grant is a world-renowned media scholar and a leading practitioner in the emergent field of videographic criticism, in which screen scholars creatively deploy sound and image to develop critical and interpretative arguments using digital media. 

Catherine Grant is a Fellow of the British Academy and a former Professor of Digital Media and Screen Studies at Birkbeck. She is currently an Honorary Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading, UK. She has published widely on theories and practices of film authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, and has edited or authored significant collections of work on world cinema, Latin American cinema, digital film and media studies, and the scholarly online video essay. She has made over 200 video essays since 2012. 

On Thursday, September 25 at 5pm, Professor Grant will present a lecture and screening entitled “The Video Essay as Device” at the Gowen Room in Wilson Commons at the River Campus of the University of Rochester. 

On Friday, September 26, and Saturday, September 27, Grant will lead workshops in Rochester and Syracuse on videographic criticism at the beginners’ and intermediate levels for small groups of faculty and graduate students who have been selected through an application process. 

On Sunday, September 28, her visit will conclude with “An Arena of Intellectual Experience,” a screening of a curated selection of video essays from across her career, followed by a conversation with Joel Burges (Associate Professor of English and Visual & Cultural Studies and Director of Film & Media Studies, University of Rochester), Pavitra Sundar (Associate Professor of Literature and Director of the Cinema and Media Studies Program, Hamilton College) and Roger Hallas (Professor of English, Syracuse University). 

For accommodation requests, please contact the organizers two weeks in advance.