University of Virginia, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Mellon Fellows Symposium | Samhita Sunya & Paul Dobryden

September 14, 2018

Mellon Fellows Symposium

September 14

Wilson 142

 

 

 

10.30-11.30am

Samhita Sunya, Assistant Professor of Cinema, Department of Middle Easter & South Asian Languages & Cultures

"South by South/West Asia: Transregional Histories of Middle East/South Asia Cinemas"

 

11.30am-12.30pm

Paul Dobryden, Assistant Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

"Hygiene on Screen: The Visual Rhetoric of Health in Weimar Cinema"

 

12.30-1.00pm - Lunch

 

Samhita Sunya completed her PhD at Rice University in 2014 and joined the American University of Beirut as an Assistant Professor of Visual Culture.  Her location in Lebanon for two years (2014 - 2016) complemented her earlier fieldwork at the National Film Archive of India, enabling her to further probe postwar circulation histories of Hindi film/songs across the Middle East.  Professor Sunya has been working on a manuscript titled Sirens of Modernity: World Cinema Via Bombay, which historicizes the emergence of “world cinema” as a category in the politics of the Cold War, and the manner in which Hindi film/songs negotiated this category.  Her interests span world film history; South / West Asian cinemas; intersections of audio-visual media and literature; and sound studies.  She also has a curatorial background in the collaborative administration of film series and festivals.  Professor Sunya teaches survey courses and specialized seminars in Middle East - South Asia film histories, in addition to Middle East - South Asia-focused thematic courses on topics such as cinephilia, adaptation, and genre; methods courses in areas such as film programming, sound studies, and film festival studies; among so many other possibilities that lie ahead! 

 

Paul Dobryden is Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. 

Homer Statue
Wilson Hall 142
10:30 am