Hugo Ljungbäck and Christian Balistreri, “Teaching Media Archives,” a special issue of Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies (vol. 11, no. 1, October 2025)
The special issue seeks to add to the growing literature on media-archival pedagogy by offering new perspectives on graduate and undergraduate education, the practical and logistical challenges of training and instruction, and the development of curricular and extracurricular programs, initiatives, and activities. What actually happens in the classroom, or in the archive? How does one “teach media archives”?
Featuring eighteen articles and essays by archivists, librarians, scholars, and teachers, the contributions to this special issue include discussions of existing and imagined graduate programs; detailed descriptions of internships and standalone graduate and undergraduate courses focused on film preservation, restoration, cataloguing, and programming; proposals for new digital pedagogical tools and new locations for media-archival pedagogy and collaboration; guides for anticolonial description, inclusive archival practice, and accessible course design for neurodivergent and disabled archivists; and reflections on media literacy, student-led initiatives, and the state of media-archival education nationally and internationally. Taken together, these articles and essays provide an expansive view of media-archival education today, encompassing both advanced, professional training for careers in media archives as well as more general introductions to archival concepts and practices within film and media studies, art history, and information science curricula.
Contributors: Oscar Becher, Chloë Brushwood Rose, Nicholas Caluda, Paolo Cherchi Usai, David Christopher, Marie-Odile Demay, Axelle Demus, J.M.S Emberley, Barbara Filser, Camila Garcia Cabrera, Luiza Gonçalves, Ben Harry, Marina Hassapopoulou, Nathan Holmes, Shruti Hussain, Lucas Larriera, Michael Marlatt, Brian Meacham, Lindsay Erin Miller, Felix Mittelberger, Tyisha Murphy, Madhavi Reddy, Aparna Subramanian, Kimberly Tarr, Petra Totten, Patricia Ledesma Villon, and Travis L. Wagner.