Graduate Program in Media Studies

Graduate Program in Media Studies—MA in Media Studies and

Certificate in Media Studies now accepting applications.

Virtual MA in Media Studies Open House on January 17, 2023, at 7pm.

Registration Form: https://forms.gle/1swzKupgkWYiviQh6

MA in Media Studies Exhibition 2023

Between May 1-5, the graduate students who completed practice exams mounted an exhibition in the Math & Science Gallery (F09) in the ARC Building. The works exhibited were: Infinite Archive by Hannah Kelley, Material Reality by Nicole Majewski, Constructs by Maggie McPhee, Nahuales by Carolyna Reyes, and Our Branded Bodies by Isabel Rosen.

Pratt Studio 200, April 21, 2023

Thesis Presentations

The annual Thesis Presentation event is a public event but more importantly, it's a GPMS community event that showcases your intellectual and artistic growth and the culmination of your graduate work at Pratt.

On April 21st, Graduate Media Studies students Mir Finkelman, Hannah Kelley, Nicole Majewski, Maggie McPhee, Carolyna Reyes, Alana Ribaudo and Isabel Rosen, presented their thesis exams in Pratt Studios 200. The presentation was followed by a reception.

Narae Lee's Internship with Oscar-winning director Tim Yip

During the spring break, I participated in the oscar-winning director Tim Yip's new documentary film 'Love Infinity NYC' as a Personal Assistant. He has his muse, Lily, which is a human-sized and human-looking doll that is taller than me and I was mostly in charge of taking care of her. We went to the Upper West Side to Bushwick to meet New York artists and observed how they interact with Lily. I am so grateful that I was able to encounter people from different backgrounds I would have never met during the internship. I taste the feeling of being back on the set again and can't wait to be part of production work in the future!

We went to Judd Tully, an art critic and a filmmaker's place in Soho and interviewed him. It was interesting to see how he interacted with Lily- the human sized doll. Lily was sitting behind them listening to the conversation between Judd and Tim. I was in charge of moving Lily to his apartment and helping her to take off her jacket or brush her hair.

We also went to Ken Brown's beautiful loft in Tribeca. He is a NYC street photographer, filmmaker, cartooner. His place is a living museum, and we interviewed him in his place with Lily again. He showed us what he collected and archived since the 80's from New York City. He adored Lily and was very curious about how she was made. I came to his place earlier than everyone to make sure him and his place is worth filming.

Photo of me and Lily! We went to Search and Destroy, the gore vintage store in St Marks East village. It was our first shooting with Lily and there were people who work in the store and Erik, the fashion designer. I was in charge of portable lighting since I was the only one who fit in between the racks of clothes. We also get to talk to the manager of the store. It was a really cool experience and Lily is versatile, she blends into any environment.

We went to Asia Society to interview the Opera director, François Girard. He had such a charismatic character. I was in charge of helping Tim to eat and rest well on that day.

Lily went to Chinatown and met a girl named Flora who dances and sings beautifully. It was so beautiful how Flora interacted with Lily. She was not scared of her, and treated her like her friend! It was a cold day so I hung out with Flora a lot and made sure she stayed warm and ate. She was such a joy on the set.

We went to the Ferry with Lily. I was carrying her in a wheelchair and it was such a challenging shoot. The film crew almost kicked out from the ferry but still in that moment, Tim continued to film.

Last photo! We went to Bushwick and watched the drag show and stripping. Lily and I were in the front row, so I was really lucky to witness the show at the best place. At first people did not know if she was real but once they realized it's a doll everyone wanted to touch her. I was Lily's bodyguard on that day. After the show, we met a "living doll" and she adored Lily like she is her best friend!

Alumnus Eric Trenkamp at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Research Open House

MA Awards of Excellence and Merit

2022: Emily Chou

2021: Catherine Midla

2020: Alexa McDougall

2019: Bhoomika Ghaghada

Welcoming our MA in Media Studies Students, Fall 2022

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MEDIA STUDIES

Spring 2021

We made it through a full year online in the pandemic! We had talks by media activist Diana McCarty, documentary filmmaker and Firelight Media’s Senior Vice President for Programs Loira Limbal, curator and media critic Nora Khan, and journalist and Executive Director of the Brooklyn Movement Center Mark Winston Griffith. We had two social events—a “rice breaker” and a game night. One of the great lessons of this year was the importance (if also the difficulty) of making and keeping community while physically distanced. In that spirit, we thought it was important to take a moment to reach out to one another and to celebrate our community’s achievements, big and small. It has made me so happy to hear from each of you and I hope to hear from even more folks in the future.

Congratulations, all!

Mendi Obadike, Coordinator, Graduate Program in Media Studies at Pratt Institute

We celebrate our graduating students, who are in the process of submitting their theses at the time of this writing, many of whom presented during the Thesis Presentations:

Joey Carducci is submitting a thesis project entitled Framing the Process: Experimental 16mm Film as A Material and Theoretical Trans Framework.
Catherine Midla presented thesis work on Marketing Identity: Barbie, Lil Miquela, and Social Media Influencers
Elizabeth Olguin presented thesis work on Latinx Identity Formation, Digital Folk Art, and Social Media Economies
Adhithya Sethuraman presented thesis work entitled The Utopics of Space
Gabriela Sibilska presented thesis work — a glitch film entitled Hybrid Memories
Yang Xian presented thesis work — an essay film entitled Beyond The Grid, We Ourselves Flash and Yearn
Zane Davis A. Zamora presented thesis work on Grids of Connection: Comics and New York City; A New Hope?: The 1980s in American Cinema And Nostalgia; and Soundtrack in Flux: Original Philippine Music of the Postcolonial Era

Allow us to brag on our community a little more:

Jonathan Beller (faculty) published a new book entitled The World Computer: Derivative Conditions of Racial Capitalism (Duke Press). He has also published the following articles this academic year: “Digitality and Racial Capitalism,” Handbook of Marxism (London: Sage Publications, forthcoming 2021); "Communism Must Wager on Economic Media: A Review of Brian Massumi’s 99 Thesis on the Revaluation of Value: A Postcapitalist Manifesto,” Cultural Critique #110, Winter 2021; 219-253; and "Economic Media: Crypto and the Myth of Total Liquidity,” Australian Humanities Review, No. 66, May 2020; 215-225. He has written about cryptocurrency in Coindesk: “How We Short Capitalism and Finance the Revolution," Coindesk, Sept. 25, 2020; and "Fascism on the Blockchain" The Work of Art in the Age of NFTs. Beller also gave numerous talks this year including at Stanford's Modern Thought, two Moneylabs (Helsinki, Berlin), the Institute for Culture and Arts (ICA), Miami, and the Goethe Institute, San Francisco. Currently he is organizing a "Forum on Equitable, Sustainable, Communitarian Organization of Art and Culture" with participants from Italy, Australia, Thailand, the U.S. and the Philippines. He is also working on a new book provisionally entitled For the Decolonization of Money. He continues to serve on the editorial collective of Social Text as well as to work in his spare time on crypto-economic design in the service of anti-racist, anti-sexist, decolonial struggles, and towards the creation of anti-capitalist and post-capitalist economy.

Jayna Brown (faculty) published a new book entitled Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (Duke Press)
Bhoomika Ghaghada, GPMS ‘19 has two recent publications: an article from her thesis entitled “Karama, an Immigrant Neighborhood Transformed” (in Jadaliyya) and “A Gulf between Me and My Father” (in Postscript)
Ece Gurleyik, GPMS ‘20 began the Ph.D. program in Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU.
Marilia Kaisar, GPMS ‘18 began the Ph.D. program in Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz.
Keisha Nicole Knight, GPMS ‘18 created Sentient.Art.Film, a creative distribution initiative for distributing experimental film.
Lauren La Melle, GPMS ‘18 started as the Office Manager at Aubin Pictures and created ScaryCrit -- a podcast about horror films and Blackness.
Alexa McDougall, GPMS ‘20 began a job as a Project Manager at NBCUniversal Media.
Mendi Obadike (faculty) debuted, with Keith Obadike: Unity Gain (a collaborative sound art project), a sound and video work entitled “The Sun”, a sound and video work entitled “LIFT (Listening Skies),” and “lull, a sleep temple”, an eight hour long sonic environment for rest that is streaming three times during the month of May with the Look + Listen Festival.
Elizabeth Olguin, GPMS ‘21 received an Artist Grant from the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and Democracy, NYC, and is designing a citywide media campaign for the June Primary Election and Ranked Choice Voting.
Paige Polk, GPMS ‘19 joined the Advancement Project National Office team in DC as Sr. Digital Campaigns Innovator, where she builds interactive digital projects related to their community organizing campaigns. Right now, they’re focusing on a Constitutional Right to Vote, Rights Restoration for returning citizens, and getting police out of schools. <https://www.paigepolk.com>
Semanti Ray, GPMS ‘17 published a novel with Penguin India under a pseudonym.
Julia Rittenberg, GPMS ‘18 published an article entitled “A Media Studies Perspective on Canceling Books” (in Book Riot)u a GPMS community member with news to share? Please share it here.