Keynote Speaker: Matt Yockey
Matt Yockey joined the University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film in 2010. He teaches courses on film history, film theory, European cinema, Third Cinema, auteur films (such as Hitchcock and Kubrick), screenwriting, animation studies, and film genres (including gangster, science fiction, and superhero films).
Yockey’s research focus is on Hollywood genres and fan studies. His essays on these topics have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, The Velvet Light Trap, CineAction, Transformative Works and Cultures, Journal of Fandom Studies, The European Journal of American Studies, and Studies in Comics, as well as the anthologies Critical Approaches to the Films of M. Night Shyamalan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), and The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). His monograph on the 1960s Batman television series was published by Wayne State University Press in 2014. He is the editor of the anthology Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe (University of Texas Press, 2017).
Yockey earned a combined Ph.D. in Communication and Culture and American Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2007.
Plenary Speaker: Terrence Wandtke
Terrence Wandtke is a professor of literature and media studies at Judson University in Elgin, IL where classes taught include Comic Books and Graphic Novels and Media Theory. He has directed the school’s film and media program, served as the area chair of Comics and Comic Art for the Popular Culture Association Conference, and currently acts as the editor of the Comics Monograph Series for the Rochester Institute of Technology. His scholarship analyzes the connections between contemporary literature, film, and other media and his recent research focuses on the historical trends and revisionism associated with comic books. He is author of The Comics Scare Returns: The Resurgence in Contemporary Horror Comics and The Dark Night Returns: The Contemporary Resurgence in Crime Comics (both RIT) and The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books (McFarland); he is the editor of the collections Ed Brubaker: Conversations (UP of Mississippi) and The Amazing Transforming Superhero: Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film, and Television (McFarland). Topics of his recent articles include Frank Miller’s Sin City: The Hard Goodbye as resistance to the comics industry and the relationship between Marvel’s Jessica Jones and working-class literature. The founder of the Imago Film Festival, he has served on the selection committee for the St. Louis International Film Festival’s Interfaith Award and on the jury for the Elgin Short Film Festival.
Special Guest: Philip Crawford (Artist)
Philip Andrew Crawford (b. 1988) is a visual artist and writer based in Berlin, Germany working primarily in mixed-media, collage, printmaking, painting and installation. A self-‐taught artist, Philip’s extended practice focuses on the nature and functions of myth and visual narratives by investigating the content, material conditions and historical context of, and responses to, the various cultural artifacts that he appropriates. Many of Philip’s current projects adopt text and images from comic books, magazines, newspapers, autobiographies, movies and video games. He uses these documents to understand and question contemporary conceptions of heroism, specifically as they relate to identity formation and our performances of race, gender, sexuality and religion. In (re)(de)constructing narratives, Philip likes to manipulate distance, transparency, and readability to invite multiple and illusory readings, highlight simple personal revelations or prod skeptically at deep-seated “universal truths.” Philip holds a BA in History from Stanford University and is completing his MA in American Culture and History at Freie Universitat in Berlin.
Special Guest: Xavier Mendik (Film Director)
Xavier Mendik is Professor of Cult Cinema Studies at Birmingham City University, from where he also runs the Cine-Excess International Film Festival (www.cine-excess.co.uk). He is the author/editor/co-editor of nine volumes on cult cinema traditions, including Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema (2015), Peep Shows: Cult Film and the Cine-Erotic (2012) and The Cult Film Reader (2008). He has also completed a number of documentaries on cult film traditions, including Tax Shelter Terrors: The Real Story of Canadian Cult Film (2017), and That’s La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead (2018).
Special Guest: Razi Jafri (Film Director)
Razi Jafri is a documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on religion, culture, politics, and the changing American cultural landscape. His current projects include directing and producing an upcoming feature documentary called Hamtramck, USA, which examines the complexities of multiculturalism through the lens of Hamtramck’s 2017 municipal elections. Another feature film he is currently working on is Loyalty, which follows the stories of three Muslim chaplains as they navigate religious freedom in the US armed forces.
He is also currently serving in a role as photographer and project manager at the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where he is working on a collaborative multimedia project called Halal Metropolis, examining Muslim visibility in southeast Michigan.
Razi is an alumnus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn where he received a bachelor’s degree in engineering.
Special Guests: Detroit Experience Factory
The Detroit Experience Factory connects locals and visitors to Detroit’s people, places and projects through contextual storytelling, interactive experiences and innovative resources. DXF has taken over 100,000 people on experiential tours of Detroit since launching in 2006.
Joining us for a special workshop on storytelling are Chloe Seymour, Bria Swanson, and Paul Talpos.