The WCFTR blog highlights collection news, projects, and services with posts by staff, student assistants, and volunteers. We also cover WCFTR events and events with our campus partners.
Recent Posts
“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 …
June 6, 2023
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 …
June 5, 2023
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: …
May 31, 2023
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 …
May 25, 2023
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 …
April 24, 2023
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 …
April 18, 2023
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 …
January 12, 2023
Upgrading and Redesigning the Media History Digital Library
For the past two years, the MHDL and WCFTR teams have been working to upgrade the online presence of the Media History Digital Library. While there have been incremental updates and band-aid fixes throughout the MHDL’s history, a dedicated modernization and redesign was long overdue. Thanks to the generous support of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an ACLS Digital Extension Grant, new versions of the MHDL website as well as the Lantern search platform were launched in late 2022.
December 20, 2022
It Happened in Hollywood
by Pauline Lampert This video file is the result of a minor archival miracle! It is an illuminating and scarily prescient film strip that details the many injustices perpetrated by the House Un-American Activities …
December 6, 2022
Archival Screening Night Roadshow! November 18th at 7p
Join the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research and the Wisconsin Historical Society as they host the Archival Screening Night Roadshow on Thursday November 18 at 7 pm in the Historical Society auditorium. This …
November 4, 2021- Older Posts