Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Eduard Saakashvili: I analyze the documentary representation of critical theorists. Specifically, I look at how the filmic representation of their ideas interacts with the filmic representation of their personas.
FM: What research and/or methodologies do you incorporate in your article?
ES: I relied on textual close reading along with drawing on theoretical frameworks for understanding documentary performance.
FM: Describe the original context for/when writing this article while an undergraduate student.
ES: This is an adapted version of my senior thesis.
FM: How has your department and/or institution supported your work in film and media?
ES: They gave generous funding and mentorship to engage in scholarship both curricular and extracurricular.
FM: How has your faculty mentor fostered your advancement as a film scholar?
ES: Bob Rehak, who was my advisor on this thesis, first spurred my interest in film and media studies in a class about conspiracy theories. This was a class I took purely out of a passing sociopolitical interest. It was a pre-2016 world.
FM: How has the Film Matters editorial and publication process impacted the development/evolution of your article?
ES: I have enjoyed the process of being shown the weak points of the article and trying to patch them up. The long waiting periods between the various revisions have also forced me to come to each draft with a slightly evolved writerly sensibility, which is always exciting.
FS: What audience do you hope to reach with your Film Matters article and/or what impact do you hope it has on the field of film studies?
ES: Since I wrote this article, the debate about academic celebrity has become reenergized. I hope that my small intervention still holds up as a way of evaluating not the morality or desirability of academic stardom, but at least its aesthetic effects. I also hope to reach an audience of students and professors alike to show them that your article’s title doesn’t always need a colon in the middle.
FM: What are your future plans?
ES: For now, I’m happily working in journalism and hoping for an irresistible grad school research focus to fall into my lap.
Author Biography
Eduard Saakashvili graduated from Swarthmore College in 2017, earning a degree in film and media studies. He has since worked as an editor and producer for various media outlets.
