REFRAMING THE ARGUMENT

"Reframing the Argument" is a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame, Tel Aviv University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It is designed to establish and explore videographic practices for graduate students in support of building a globally and linguistically-diverse community of scholarly practice.

As a mentorship experience, the project advances scholarly and pedagogical practice by connecting established videographic scholars with graduate students. With a focus on videographic criticism as a methodology of scholarly research and knowledge production, "Reframing the Argument" offers training in advanced audiovisual rhetoric, video-editing skills, developing a scholarly argument, and using videographic methods to enhance and inform graduate-student theses and dissertations. 

The project will consist of an online event followed by an intensive five-day in-person workshop held at The University of Notre Dame that will generate exercises, theoretical discussion, collaborative research, engagement and critique, and mentorship for each participant to produce a final video essay that expresses the central argument of their dissertation or thesis.

Video Essays as Communicative Research Practice

What might a thesis or dissertation look like as a video essay? How can we communicate our written argumentation/ideas in an audiovisual form, without relying on explicitly explanatory crutches? How can we apply videographic tools as research methodologies that enable us to rethink our objects of study?

With a focus on videographic criticism as a methodology of scholarly research and knowledge production, "Reframing the Argument" offers graduate students training in advanced audiovisual rhetoric, video-editing skills, developing a scholarly argument, and using videographic methods to express, enhance, and inform theses and dissertations. Students will gain useful training that will inform not only their individual research projects, but also their future career aspirations, whether they be academic, academic-adjacent, private industry, or in public scholarship. Together with mentors, students will explore how to convey complex research ideas and questions in ways that compliment the affordances of videographic methodologies.

The organizing committee can be reached by email at:

reframingtheargument@gmail.com