2024 Summer Fellowships
MAJS endeavors to bring faculty and students from all disciplines together to create and critically interrogate media practices and texts, and to cultivate and convene thought leaders committed to ethical reporting, production, and storytelling practices. MAJS Summer Fellowships are funded by a generous donation from a former member of LMU’s Board of Trustees to support interdisciplinary course development, research, or creative projects that address any issue or topic surrounding media industries, texts, contexts, and ethical challenges.
Course Development
Acting Out: South Asian Melodrama Across Media
- Anupama Prabhala, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Media Studies, SFTV
- Arnab Banerji, Associate Professor of Theater Arts, CFA
This proposed course will take a close look at a subsection of the vast Indian film industry to dispel the commonly held misconception that Bollywood is Indian cinema. By tracing the influence of Western artistic practices such as neoclassical French theatrical performance on South Asian media, the course illuminates the migration of global art forms and hopes to inspire inquiry into other global cinema cultures.
Contemplative Play and Playful Contemplation: Animation, Interactive Media, and East Asian Thought
- Sue Scheibler, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Media Studies, SFTV
- Eric Haruki Swanson, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies, BCLA
The proposed course brings together the disciplines of religious studies and media theory (specifically animation and video game studies) to introduce students to new approaches in thinking about the contemplative experience and notions of play. The interdisciplinary course will take an innovative approach that uses animation as well as contemporary immersive media (video games, virtual reality, etc) to encourage students to become critically engaged readers of animated texts and video games.
Revolution in Mexico and Cuba
- Margarita Ochoa, Associate Professor of History, BCLA
- Glenn Gebhard, Professor of Film and TV Production, SFTV
This proposed course will examine the causes, outcomes, and legacies of revolution in Mexico and Cuba, and the reverberations of their movements across Central America, the United States, and beyond. The course will involve a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project, and students will have the opportunity to work on podcast assignments and partake in film and archival document analysis.
Health Communication, Media, & Social Justice
- Michael Noltemeyer, Writing Instructor
- Romy RW, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, CFA
- Timothy Williamson, Assistant Professor of Psychological Science, BCLA
This course aims to enhance students’ understanding of health disparities, social justice, and the role of media in shaping health communication messages and health promotion media campaigns. Students will complete a semester-long group project that implements a health communication media campaign, and evaluate the implications of their campaign for health media literacy, social justice, and civic engagement.
The Business of Screenwriting – Law and AI
- Justin Winters, Instructor of Screenwriting, SFTV
- Jeffery Atik, Professor of Law, LLS
This course will delve into the intersection of law, technology and entertainment, with a focus on developing, writing, producing, and distributing original content. Students will explore how emerging technology can assist the production of creative projects. The course will also explore the legal and technological frameworks that shape the future of the entertainment industry, engaging with the complexities of IP ownership and examining innovative distribution channels to learn how to effectively reach audiences in the digital age.
Research Projects
Impact of Racial Media Representation in Mobile Communication on College Students’ Mental Health
Romy RW, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, CFA
This proposed project endeavors to delve into the impact of race in new media communication, specifically podcasts, on enhancing mental health among college students, with a particular focus on racial minority groups. The objective is to scrutinize effective communication strategies that can augment mental health and contribute to achieving health equity for racial minority college students. This project actively engages with the goal of shifting the media landscape toward more equitable production practices and promoting justice in media content.
Hollywood Walkout: Creative Labor in the Age of Streaming
Miranda Banks, Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Media Studies, SFTV
The MAJS fellowship will support Professor Banks’ book project on how the economics and distribution practices of streaming have altered the nature of film and television production work. To help students prepare for careers as media workers in the present industry climate, Banks plans to use funds to host a panel discussion that will bring LMU students across the campus—both graduate and undergraduate—into conversation with experts in Hollywood labor that help explain the current state of creative labor in Hollywood and the relationship of technological change to the ethical questions about the contemporary state of media work.
Creative Projects
On Dance: Critical Conversations Podcast
- Taryn Vander Hoop, Professor of Dance, CFA
- Laura Ann Smyth, Instructor of Dance, CFA
The grant will support the production and promotion of “On Dance,” a podcast that provides listeners with a contemporary and relevant foray into dance criticism and is increasingly needed in a shifting media landscape. Students enrolled in Dance Theory and Criticism in the Fall of 2024 will be required to listen to a selection of episodes from the podcast and participate in the podcast as student reviewers as a way for them to be exposed to contemporary dance artists and to assist them in developing their critical voice within the dance arena.