Dr Leshu Torchin
Lecturer in Film Studies
Research profile
My work focuses on the intersection of audio-visual culture (film, video, and the Internet) and international human rights. I am interested in the ways film and video have been used to produce political publics and transnational communities of concern, or witnessing publics.
In my studies, I combine textual and formal analysis with considerations of social practice and political economy (production, distribution, and exhibition). In doing so I examine how industrial entertainment culture is brought to bear on the political. I investigate how practices such as strategic narrowcasting, variegated distribution platforms, and media synergies inlfuence the look and shape of both activism as well as our understanding of human rights and the crime of genocide.
The particular subjects of interest have been the early transnational campaigns in response to the Armenian Genocide, which included feature films (Ravished Armenia or Auction of Souls) and celebrities (Jackie ‘the Kid' Coogan); the use of Holocaust liberation footage in feature films and trials; the growing body of Rwandan genocide films; and the work of international human rights organisation WITNESS.
More recently, I've begun to study activism in response to extreme poverty as a human rights issue. I've been especially focused on the spectacular multi-performance platform, transmedia campaign of LIVE 8 and Make Poverty History. However, this area also includes the many films that visualise the human cost of global capitalism and reframe economic concerns as issues of social justice.
Other interests include: History and Memory on Film, Trauma, and Tourism and Film.
Click here for the full research profile.
Selected publications
(Forthcoming) "White Band's Burden: Live 8 and Humanitarian Synergy," in Meg McLagan and Yates McGee (eds), Visual Cultures of Non- Governmental Politics, (Zone Publishing/MIT Press, 2009)
(Forthcoming) "Anne Frank and the Moving Image," in Jeffrey Shandler and Barabra Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (eds), Mediating Anne Frank (Indiana University Press, 2009).
"Trafficking and Video" In Media Res "Human Rights", November 9-November 12.
"Cultural Learnings of Borat For Make Benefit Glorious Study of Documentary," Film & History, Vol. 38.1 (Spring 2008).
"Influencing Representation: Equal Access and Roma Social Inclusion" in Third Text, 22.3 (March 2008), pp. 387-296.
"Since We Forgot: Remembrance and Recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Virtual Archives," in Roger Hallas and Frances Guerin (eds), The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture (Wallflower Press, 2007), pp. 82-97.
"Ravished Armenia: Visual Media, Humanitarian Advocacy, and the Formation of Witnessing Publics," American Anthropologist; 108 March 2006: 214-220.
"Lost Boys in 7th Heaven" The Revealer: A Daily Review of Religion and the Press (June 17, 2004).
"Location, Location, Location: The Destination of the Manhattan TV Tour" in Tourist Studies, 2.3 (December 2002), pp. 247-266.
"Spontaneous Memorials and Individual Narratives: Community Building Strategies" in 9-11 and After: A Virtual Casebook. Part of the Virtual Casebook Project at New York University produced and edited by Faye Ginsburg and Barbara Abrash and organized by The Center for Media Culture and History at NYU. This is an online collection of essays and links illuminating practices of cultural activism post-9-11.
Reviews:
"Shake Hands with the Devil," Cineaste, 31.1 (Winter 2005), p. 88.
"Hotel Rwanda," Cineaste, 30.2 (Spring 2005), pp. 46-48.
"La Bataille du Rail," Cineaste 32.1 (Winter 2006), pp. 66-68.
"Jeux Interdits," Cineaste 32.1 (Winter 2006), pp. 66-68.
Current research
Conferences, Lectures and Colloquia (Selected)
Invited Speaker: 'Envisioning Economic Human Rights' at the Centre for Screen Studies (University of Glasgow) 21 October 2009.
Roundtable Participant in Terrorism from a Multidisciplinary Perspective hosted by The Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, 30 September 2009.
Presenter: 'New Perspectives: Envisioning Economic Human Rights' at Media Communications and Cultural Studies Association Conference (MeCCSA) (Bradford UK), 14-16 January 2009.
Presenter: 'Citizen Tube and Youtube's Focus on Darfur' at Society for Cinema and Media Studies (Philadelphia, PA) 5-9 March 2008.
Invited Speaker: 'Citizentube, Darfur, and Witnessing Publicists' for Social Anthropology Seminar (University of St Andrews) 5 December 2007.
Presenter: 'Citizen Tube: Focus on Darfur' at Future Histories of the Moving Image (University of Sunderland) 16-18 November 2007.
Presenter: ‘White Band's Burden: Humanitarian Synergy, Live 8, and the Campaign to Make Poverty History'. Paper presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (Chicago, IL) 8-11 March 2007.
Invited Speaker: ‘Transnational Methods for National Inclusion: Equal Access and Educational Integration in Bulgaria' (title change); presenter at Representation and Effect: The Roma in Politics, Art, and the Academy, an interdisciplinary workshop convened by the British Academy, the department of Social Anthropology, and the Centre for Film Studies (University of St Andrews) 23-25 March 2007.
Invited Speaker: ‘The Burden of Witnessing: Visual Media and the Production of Rights Claims,' Seminar paper presented at the International Centre for Advanced Studies at New York University, 3 February, 2006. Invited participant as part of the three year project, The Authority of Knowledge in the Global Age: Politics of the Unprivileged (Year 2)
Panelist (invited): Mediating Anne Frank: A Colloquium, Presented by the Working Group on Jews/Media/Religion of the Center for Religion and Media (New York University) 10 May 2005.
Invited Speaker: ‘Ravished Armenia: Early Film Activism' at Religious Witness, the first annual conference of the Center for Religion and Media (New York University) 8 May 2004. This presentation discusses the use of Christian iconography in media in order to marshal sentiment and mobilize publics in the aid of Armenian refugees.
Invited speaker in Professor Meg McLagan's Human Rights and Anthropology (undergraduate module) New York University, 20 April 2004. Presentation on Ravished Armenia (1919), an early film about the atrocities in Armenia used by Near East Relief as an outreach and mobilizing tool. Introduction to the historical poetics of visual testimonies of genocide and human rights abuses in the activist venue.
Presenter: ‘Forgotten Witness: Remembering Ravished Armenia' at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (Atlanta, GA) 7 March 2004.
Presenter: ‘Unlike Any Other War Film? Constitution and Reconstitution in Black Hawk Down,' at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (Minneapolis, MN) 6 March 2003.
Presenter: ‘Spontaneous Memorials as Tactical Media' presented at the Memory Matters Symposium (New York University) 11 November 2001. I address the ways that the spontaneous memorials following 9/11 displayed the community-building strategies typically attributed to activist media practices.
Research students
I am interested in advising students working in the area of film and social justice, representations of genocide and the Holocaust, trauma, collective memory, documentary, visual anthropology, media anthropology, and film industries (including tourism).
Teaching
I teach on the following sub-honours modules:
FM1001 Key Concepts in Film Studies
FM1002 Film History and Historiography
I teach the following specialist modules:
FM4105 Representing the Holocaust
FM4203 American Independent Cinema
FM4303 Documentary Cinema
Availability
Visiting Hours: Thursdays, 1-3pm
I am also available by appointment. Please email me to arrange.