Matthew Solomon, Vincent Longo, and Philip Hallman recently contributed to the Cinema Journal: The Journal of the Society of Cinema & Media Studies Teaching Dossier: Teaching with Primary Sources Vol 4 (3). 

In their contribution, entitled "Rebooting Studies of Film Authorship by Curating in the Classroom at Michigan," Solomon, Longo, and Hallman discuss the "rebooted" the Department of Film, Television, and Media class “Authorship and the Archive: Exploring the Film, Theater, and TV Collections of the U of M Special Collections." a course in which undergraduate students have the unique opportunity to explore the Mavericks and Makers collections in the University of Michigan Special Collections Library, which document the careers of Robert Altman, Orson Welles, John Sayles, Alan Rudolph, Nancy Savoca and exhibitor/distributors Robert Shaye and Ira Deutchman. 

The co-authored contribution reflects on the rebooting process from three distinct points of view. First, Matthew Solomon, who taught the course in 2013 and 2015 (and is scheduled to teach it again in 2018) discusses some of the challenges encountered and lessons learned in the process. Second, Vincent Longo, who took the course as an undergraduate and is now a doctoral student, describes how he has incorporated some of those lessons into his work as an award-winning mentor to students in the undergraduate research opportunity program. Third, Mavericks and Makers curator Philip Hallman reflects on his work as the participating librarian in the four different courses that incorporated major archival research components, and offers a series of concrete tips for those interested in creating comparable assignments.

To read the complete contribution, please click here. 

Above text extracted from Teaching with Primary Sources: Media Studies and the Archive, Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier Vol 4 (3), Edited by Kate Fortmueller, University of Georgia and Laura Isabel Serna, University of Southern California