Last year, the SSAAANZ Executive took the decision to seek out esteemed film and screen scholar and Monash University Adjunct, Associate Professor Adrian Martin (now based in Spain) for a brief ‘provocation piece’ outlining what he saw as the state of play for screen studies in the era of Covid-19. This piece was then forwarded to two others working in this disciplinary field with the invitation to respond. Together with Adrian’s initial essay, we present here the responses from (respectively) Dr Stuart Richards, Lecturer in Screen Studies at UniSA, Adelaide, and Dr Missy Molloy, Senior Lecturer in Film at Victoria University, Wellington, NZ.
While we’d hoped to have these essays published sooner, the very fact of their delayed publication is itself testament to the on-going disruptions caused by Covid-19 including related bouts of illness, and as you’ll see in the essays, the increasing demands of playing catch-up in institutional settings where the onus is pushed back to us to keep atop of teaching, research and admin duties, plus meeting obligations around public outreach and applying for grant funding. At first read, you may think each paper paints a nihilistic or dystopian picture of the screen studies environment, but this is to overlook the underlying theme across all three papers that reflect a corpus (I dislike that word!), a collection, a family, of people passionate about screen studies. As Adrian notes, and Missy affirms, despite having friends and colleagues turning their backs on the institutional coalmines of academia, the adherence to the core elements of screen studies – the content, the industries, the creativity – remains forefront in their thinking. In other words, it’s not the love of the screen that has dimmed, but the decreased emotional connect with the corporate model of higher education.
Around the time of receiving Adrian’s essay, a forthcoming federal election in Australia saw several announcements around tertiary and creative arts funding that suggested little hope on the horizon. As a response to claims of further cuts to Screen Australia, SSAAANZ wrote to the Arts and Shadow Arts Ministers stating the importance of the screen industries to the social, political and economic being of the nation, and the potential impact this would have on national and regional relations (including New Zealand). (The letter to the Minister is included below the provocation piece and responses.) The response from the then-Minister was hardly encouraging – both defensive and patronising – it suggested that nothing was wrong, and intimated that the screen industries should be heading toward self-sufficiency anyway. The change of government (including a dedicated Ministry of Arts) and a more positive rhetoric around the advantages of higher education is yet to result in increased funding in these areas, but these are early days and indications are that a more positive approach to the screen industries will be taken. The extension (until 2023) of AU$50m in funding to support screen productions impacted by Covid, and a new, consultative process for a National Cultural Policy are a good start.
While the papers presented here debate the aptness of terms such as crisis and emergency, at the heart of each essay is the fate of academics subject to ridiculously excessive workloads, precarity, racial and gender inequalities, and a general lack of interest from the upper echelons of university management struggling to see any value in the humanities. So, what of the impact of Covid-19 on screen studies? As we return to face-to-face teaching, in what many erroneously call the ‘post-Covid’ era, we see that the pandemic merely shone a light on what was there all the time: the slow burn of academic life where more and more is asked of us, for less and less. The challenge for us all then, is to not lose sight of what captured our interest in the first place. The emotions and passions that screen studies ignite. We hope that these essays reiterate the need for organisations such as SSAAANZ that can provide points of unity and strength across the screen studies community. That can advocate for greater recognition of our field and unite friends and colleagues from across the Tasman through our symposia, conferences and communications. Our gratitude and thanks to Adrian, Stuart and Missy for taking the time in their own busy schedules to write for us. Their thoughtful, impassioned words remind us that we are not alone in this struggle, and hopefully ‘provoke’ in us the desire to share our passion for screen studies and push for a greater understanding of the necessity of our work.
Peter C. Pugsley
SSAAANZ President
The University of Adelaide
Provocation piece:
Adrian Martin Independent Scholar, Adjunct Monash University
‘I Write to You From a Far-Off Country …’
Responses:
Stuart Richards The University of South Australia
Missy Molloy Victoria University of Wellington
Letter to the Arts Minister: