New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections presents a book talk-cum-panel discussion: “Downtown Film and TV Culture, 1975-2001” led by editor Joan Hawkins and featuring essayists J. Hoberman, Laurie Stone, Terese Svoboda, and Richard Toon. The event takes place on Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 6:30pm in Bobst Library, Third Floor, 70 Washington Square South, (at LaGuardia Place).

Poster: Joan Hawkins, Downtown Film & TV Culture, 1975-2001

New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections presents a book talk-cum-panel discussion: “Downtown Film and TV Culture, 1975-2001” led by editor Joan Hawkins and featuring essayists Laurie Stone, Terese Svoboda, and Richard Toon. The event takes place on Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 6:30pm in Bobst Library, Third Floor, 70 Washington Square South, (at LaGuardia Place). [Subways A,C,E, B,D,M to West 4th Street; 6 line to Astor Place; R train to 8th Street.].

 

Downtown Film and TV Culture, 1975–2001 brings together essays by filmmakers, exhibitors, cultural critics, and scholars from multiple generations of the New York Downtown scene to illuminate individual films and filmmakers and explore the creation of a Downtown Canon, the impact of AIDS on younger filmmakers, community access cable television broadcasts, and the impact of the historic downtown scene on contemporary experimental culture.

 

“In many ways the American Independent film explosion of the 1990s--think Killer Films--grew directly out of the downtown scene,” says Hawkins. “Many of the filmmakers who later became indie auteurs (Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch, Bette Gordon, and others) started in the Downtown Cinema.”

 

The book includes J. Hoberman’s essay “No Wavelength: The Parapunk Underground,” as well as historical essays by Tony Conrad and Lynne Tillman, interviews with filmmakers Bette Gordon and Beth B., and essays by Ivan Kral and Nick Zedd.

 

“For us here in the United States, what has come to be known as ‘quality cable TV’ has been largely pioneered by people originally active in the downtown scene,” continues Hawkins. “And –again- the downtown’s production helped to open a pocket in the cultural imagination for edgier entertainment.”

 

The panelists include:

Bette Gordon, professor, director;
Laurie Stone, author, theater critic;
Terese Svoboda, poet, novelist;
Richard Toon, associate research professor, director of Museums and Museum Studies, ASU;
Moderated by Joan Hawkins, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University.

 

MEDIA ONLY: Reporters interested in covering or attending the event must contact Christopher James at 212-998-6876 or email christopher.james@nyu.edu.

 

RSVP to: rsvp.bobst@nyu.edu with your name and title/date of the event. For more information the public may call Elizabeth Wiest, 212 992 9744 or email liz.wiest@nyu.edu. Reception to follow.

 

About Fales Library and Special Collections:
The Fales Library, comprising nearly 358,000 volumes and over 10,000 linear feet of archive and manuscript materials, houses the Fales Collection of rare books and manuscripts in English and American literature, the Downtown Collection, the Marion Nestle Food Studies Collection, and the general special collections of the NYU Libraries. The Fales Collection was given to NYU in 1957 by DeCoursey Fales in memory of his father, Haliburton Fales. It is especially strong in English literature from the middle of the 18th century to the present, documenting developments in the novel. The Downtown Collection, founded in 1993, documents the downtown New York art, performance, and literary scenes from 1975 to the present and is extremely rich in archival holdings, including extensive film and video. The goal of the Downtown Collection is to comprehensively collect the full range of artistic practices and output of the Downtown scene, regardless of format. This research collection, built on a documentary strategy, supports the research of students and scholars interested in the intersection of the contemporary arts and other forms of cultural and artistic expression.

The NYU Division of Libraries holds over 4 million volumes and comprises five libraries in Manhattan and one each in Brooklyn, Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.  Its flagship, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library on Washington Square, receives 2.6 million visits annually. Around the world the Libraries offers access to more than 1.2 million electronic journals, books, and databases. For more information about the NYU Libraries, please visit http://library.nyu.edu

Press Contact

Christopher James
Christopher James
(212) 998-6876