Ryan Watson
I am a film and media scholar interested in global documentary practices, civic media activism, and the uses of new and emerging media technologies. I am currently an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Chair of the Department of Arts, Film, and Music and Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA.
My research focuses on the efficacy, instrumentalization, and radical use of global documentary practices, particularly in places of occupation, war, and human rights abuses produced by amateurs, artists, and activists. I'm also interested in how such practices intersect with the use of new and emerging representational media technologies. One of the basic questions that propels my work is: what can documentary media do to effect radical, positive changes in the world and the material lives of its inhabitants? My book, Radical Documentary and Global Crises: Militant Evidence in the Digital Age (Indiana University Press, 2021) explores these topics and questions, centering the discussion on amateur, artist, and activist produced documentary media in areas extreme conflict, such as the Iraq War, the occupation of Palestine, the war in Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and child soldier conscription in the Congo.
My research focuses on the efficacy, instrumentalization, and radical use of global documentary practices, particularly in places of occupation, war, and human rights abuses produced by amateurs, artists, and activists. I'm also interested in how such practices intersect with the use of new and emerging representational media technologies. One of the basic questions that propels my work is: what can documentary media do to effect radical, positive changes in the world and the material lives of its inhabitants? My book, Radical Documentary and Global Crises: Militant Evidence in the Digital Age (Indiana University Press, 2021) explores these topics and questions, centering the discussion on amateur, artist, and activist produced documentary media in areas extreme conflict, such as the Iraq War, the occupation of Palestine, the war in Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and child soldier conscription in the Congo.
less
InterestsView All (29)
Uploads
Books by Ryan Watson
When independent filmmakers, activists, and amateurs document the struggle for rights, representation, and revolution, they instrumentalize images by advocating for a particular outcome. Ryan Watson calls this "militant evidence."
In Radical Documentary and Global Crises, Watson centers the discussion on extreme conflict, such as the Iraq War, the occupation of Palestine, the war in Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and child soldier conscription in the Congo. Under these conditions, artists and activists aspire to document, archive, witness, and testify. The result is a set of practices that turn documentary media toward a commitment to feature and privilege the media made by the people living through the terror. This footage is then combined with new digitally archived images, stories, and testimonials to impact specific social and political situations.
Radical Documentary and Global Crises re-orients definitions of what a documentary is, how it functions, how it circulates, and how its effect is measured, arguing that militant evidence has the power to expose, to amass, and to adjudicate.
For a larger preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=NmNvzgEACAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
To purchase:
https://iupress.org/9780253058003/radical-documentary-and-global-crises/
Journal Articles by Ryan Watson
Full article available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/uTaQbTtPsypKtcu6TZB2/full
Journal Introductions by Ryan Watson
Review Essays by Ryan Watson
Interviews by Ryan Watson
Book Reviews by Ryan Watson
W.J.T. Mitchell, Bernard Harcourt, and Michael Taussig. Occupy: Three Inquiries in Disobedience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2013. Paperback. 152 pp.
See: http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/occupy-three-inquiries-in-disobedience/
When independent filmmakers, activists, and amateurs document the struggle for rights, representation, and revolution, they instrumentalize images by advocating for a particular outcome. Ryan Watson calls this "militant evidence."
In Radical Documentary and Global Crises, Watson centers the discussion on extreme conflict, such as the Iraq War, the occupation of Palestine, the war in Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and child soldier conscription in the Congo. Under these conditions, artists and activists aspire to document, archive, witness, and testify. The result is a set of practices that turn documentary media toward a commitment to feature and privilege the media made by the people living through the terror. This footage is then combined with new digitally archived images, stories, and testimonials to impact specific social and political situations.
Radical Documentary and Global Crises re-orients definitions of what a documentary is, how it functions, how it circulates, and how its effect is measured, arguing that militant evidence has the power to expose, to amass, and to adjudicate.
For a larger preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=NmNvzgEACAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
To purchase:
https://iupress.org/9780253058003/radical-documentary-and-global-crises/
Full article available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/uTaQbTtPsypKtcu6TZB2/full
W.J.T. Mitchell, Bernard Harcourt, and Michael Taussig. Occupy: Three Inquiries in Disobedience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2013. Paperback. 152 pp.
See: http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/occupy-three-inquiries-in-disobedience/