Ben Pettis Everyone here at the WCFTR is incredibly excited to learn that our very own Eric Hoyt has been recognized with an exciting award from the Theatre Library Association (TLA). His most recent book, Ink-Stained …
Year: 2023
WCFTR, now on laserdisc!
Matt St. John The audiovisual holdings at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research span numerous formats and sizes, from 16mm film prints to 2-inch videotapes, and we recently welcomed laserdiscs into the fold! …
File under Telectroscope: Archives of Media in the Making
The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research was honored to co-sponsor of the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference, held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. from April 27-30, 2023. One of the WCFTR’s co-sponsored sessions was a discussion with Dr. Doron Galili (a Research Fellow in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University) about his book Seeing by Electricity: The Emergence of Television, 1878–1939 (Duke University Press, 2020). The discussion was moderated by Dr. Michele Hilmes, emeritus professor in the Communication Arts Department and a former director of the WCFTR, and also featured Dr. Susan Murray (BA, UW-Madison) and Dr. Philip Sewell (PhD, UW-Madison). We invited Dr. Galili to contribute to the WCFTR blog and expand on some of the reflections he shared at the conference about archives and broadcasting history.
“In Defense of Writers” from the Alvin Boretz Collection
Samantha Janes The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is excited to share a piece from the ongoing digitization project of the Alvin Boretz collection. The Alvin Boretz collection came to the WCFTR …
Broadcasting A/V Data at the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference
Ben Pettis This past April, hundreds of researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners convened in Washington, DC for the 2023 conference of the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF). The RPTF is a group that promotes the curation …
WCFTR Receives NHPRC Grant for “Expanding Film Culture’s Field of Vision” Project
Matt St. John The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) has received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for a project titled “Expanding Film Culture’s Field of Vision: …
An Unusual Discovery from A Global Affair
Matt St. John We are excited to share that we’re continuing our efforts to scan our entire pressbook collection at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research! Keep an eye on the Media History …
Ken Kwapis Papers – Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony
Andrew McDonnell Among the festivities that accompanied the Wisconsin Film Festival’s opening weekend, was the ribbon-cutting ceremony for one of WCFTR’s newest collections, the Ken Kwapis Papers. Kwapis is an accomplished film and television director …
WCFTR Receives NEH Grant to Digitize and Share Wendy Clarke’s Video Archive
Ben Pettis The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) has received a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to digitize, preserve, and publicly share the video archives of Wendy …
The Hartford Smith, Jr. Collection
by Matt St. John The Hartford Smith, Jr. collection provides an audio record of Detroit in the 1960s through Seeds of Discontent, the 1968 radio series Smith created, wrote, and produced. Over 26 episodes, the …