Come to this exciting and engaging talk by Joshua Glick:

Beginning in the late 1980s, progressive and conservative documentary advanced contrasting visions of social change. Documentary was on the front lines of what became known as the “culture wars,” where public expression was increasingly entwined with opposing political affiliations, social identities and moral worldviews. PBS served as a destination for queer artists such as Marlon Riggs and right-wing activists such as Michael Pack. Home video allowed for indie Hollywood filmmakers and media-savvy evangelicals to reach people in their living rooms. Public access television offered a vehicle for anti-corporate media collectives as well as white supremacists to air their opinions and build grassroots support. This presentation will explore the constellation of forces that led to the heightened stakes and visibility of documentary in the twilight of the Cold War. It will also look at some key filmmakers and the societal resonance of their work. Examining this period ultimately helps to understand the hyperpolarization in our present moment and debates concerning the truth claims of documentary.

Joshua Glick is Associate Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College. He is the author of Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History (University of California Press, 2018). More recently, he co-edited The Oxford Handbook of American Documentary with Patricia Aufderheide. In collaboration with the Museum of the Moving Image, he co-curated the exhibition, Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen. Professor Glick's current book project explores the rising interest in documentary on both the left and right of the political spectrum over the last thirty years.