Film Matters is very pleased to announce the winner of the third annual Masoud Yazdani Award, Ouma Amadou, for her FM 7.3 (2016) article, “Constructing (Black) Girlhood: Americanization, Assimilation, and Ambivalence.” Ouma is a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she studies film. Her Film Matters article was the product of her summer 2015 undergraduate research fellowship at New York University. She will be receiving a copy of The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, published by Oxford University Press in 1998.
We would also like to celebrate, again, this year’s fantastic panel of judges, whose work in reviewing an entire volume year of FM articles on our behalf was much appreciated:
Kelli Fuery is assistant professor of Film and Media Studies at Chapman University’s Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. She did her BA (Hons) at Macquarie University in Critical and Cultural Studies, graduating in 1995 with a First. Her first graduate teaching appointment was at Royal Holloway, University of London in the Media Arts department teaching Film Theory and Analysis, Film History, and Television Studies, where she enjoyed teaching with a focus that balanced practice and theory. Since then, Fuery has held posts in contemporary Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Monash University, the University of Newcastle, Australia, and in the (now) School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London. She completed her PhD (2005) at Murdoch University in Critical Theory, Film and Visual Culture. She is the author of Visual Cultures and Critical Theory (2003), and New Media: Culture and Image (2009), and has published in such journals as The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Arts & Health: An International Journal of Research, Policy and Practice, and Conradiana.
Travis Merchant is an adjunct instructor of Writing, Film, and Communications at Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, NC. He completed his BA degree at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in Film Studies and English, where he also produced an Honors thesis in Film Studies. He has published in Film Matters and presented at the 2016 and 2017 Visions Film Festival and Conference.
David Resha is assistant professor of Film Studies at Emory University’s Oxford College. He completed his PhD in Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory, Resha held a position at Birmingham-Southern College. Resha’s primary scholarly focus is documentary film history and aesthetics. He has authored the book, The Cinema of Errol Morris, and his articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Screening the Past and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Each year, Film Matters honors Masoud Yazdani, founding chairman of Intellect and all-around visionary who is very much missed, by recognizing an emerging undergraduate film scholar who has published a feature article in Film Matters the previous volume year. The winning author, selected by three individual academics based at institutions of higher education worldwide, receives a book from the field of film studies, in recognition of his/her achievement.
Upon the release of Film Matters issue 8.3 (2017), judging for the 2018 award will begin. All volume 8 (2017) feature article authors will automatically be considered for this distinction.
