Explore the power of immersive visual experiences with a screening of the 3-D IMAX movie Mummies 3-D: Secrets of the Pharaohs. The screening will be followed by a discussion with film scholar Alison Griffiths, associate professor of communication studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, and author of Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View. The discussion will examine the ways that spectacular entertainments shape our bodily and cultural sensibilities. The event will also look at why these attractions maintain such an enduring appeal for a wide variety of audiences, as they bring together science, sensation and virtuality. The event will introduce attendees to the growing academic field of visual studies and to USC’s visual studies program. A reception will follow.

Alison Griffiths is an associate professor in the department of communication studies at Baruch College, City University of New York, and a member of the doctoral faculty in theater at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View and the award-winning Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture. Her research on pre- and early cinema has appeared in such journals as Cinema Journal, Screen, Film History, Wide Angle, Visual Anthropology Review, Early Popular Visual Culture and Journal of Popular Film and Television and in numerous anthologies on early cinema and media audiences.

Organized by Vanessa Schwartz (Visual Studies) and cosponsored by the USC Visual Studies Graduate Certificate program.

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu