Category: Week 2

A History of the Campus Theatre

The research that I am undertaking this summer will be, as the title suggests, creating a more comprehensive history of the Campus Theatre located at 413 Market St. The tools associated with digital humanities will allow to not only access data associated with the history art deco theater but will also enable me to present this data in a more suitable manner than would be achievable through traditional research methods.

In creating a more complete history of the Campus Theatre, I hope to both discover and present events which have characterized this particular movie theater and transformed a building into a home for the memories of all who have experienced a film playing there. Of interest to me in particular are the Theatre’s founding, renovations that the building has been through, past screenings, special events and the like.

As the Theatre was founded in 1941, the scope of my research will not likely cover the 77 years since its founding but I hope to begin a fuller picture of the Theatre that may continue to grow after the eight weeks stipulated by the Digital Scholarship Summer Research (DSSR) program have ended.

With regard to an audience, I hope that anyone who has felt a strong connection to the Campus Theatre, whether they be a Bucknell student or a local of the area, will come across the project and will develop a deeper appreciation for the rich history of the Theatre.

As far as I have researched, I have not come across any projects that resemble the one I hope to complete — that is, projects that hope to digitize a history of a specific movie theater. With that being said, the information that I will be seeking out will come from sources unique to the Campus Theatre such as newspaper articles, magazines, archives, etc.

I hope to continue the process of digitizing the Campus Theatre’s rich history even after my research ends. Whether it be in the form of compiling information with regards to past screenings, or digitizing contemporary events, I hope to continue the project as history is a continual process and I believe that should be reflected in the work.

I would love to continue the work if possible though it would have to be on a smaller scale. If any staff of the Campus Theatre or Campus Theatre enthusiast would like to carry on the legacy of the project after this summer, that would be welcome too.

My project is a very specific project that will handle many topic from Africana Studies, Psychology and Film/Media Studies. For a piece of this project, I was able to conjure up a Project Charter. I believe that there would be no other way of explaining the depth of the project without showing some of the charter itself:

    Representation: Film Portrayal of Mental Illness and Race

“My project will explore the portrayal of mental illness on screen, specifically in films. I want to to do research on Hollywood films to see if there are preferences regarding the way mental illness is portrayed; is it usually romanticized or accurately portrayed? These are the types of questions that I plan to answer with viewing the films and seeing how most of the films that are produced portray these illnesses. However, there is another component because I want to see if there is a preference regarding race on how these mental illnesses are shown. Just from first glance, I can tell that some of the films on the list don’t necessarily have many non-white leads that are portrayed with mental illness. As a result, my project will also provide media influence.  This will show that the media influences a lot that people view and the mindsets that people have. Specifically, on a sensitive topic like this one. Although mental illness is becoming less stigmatized, that doesn’t apply to everyone and the way portrays patients is an indicator of that. Also, it could the result of any even larger point and that is access to help. These films have majority white cast members, and I want to correlate that with the amount of help that white individuals have received regarding mental illness, than non-white. I want to view all of the films from the list I have conjured up of films within the last 10 years of motion pictures distributed by these major studios. I hope that this project can appeal to people from various different disciplines; Africana Studies, Psychology and Film/Media Studies. I also hope that this project can influence others that may suspect that they have mental illnesses, but may not understand that it’s not their fault and they can seek help.

Currently, I haven’t found any projects that relate to mine because of the intersection between these various components. However, there are papers that touch on these different issues as they relate to each other. For example, I have found papers such as “‘One flew over the psychiatric unit’: mental illness and the media” that focuses on the media’s representation of mental illness that could provide me with some crucial information to enhance my project.  Some of the projects that I explored was the Art With Impact project that focuses on tackling the stigmatization of mental health through making films, but not necessarily analyzing them, and even this one doesn’t take race into account when thinking about the stigmatization of mental illness. I believe my project will build upon some of the aspects of other projects by adding that racial component and understanding the sociological approach to race as it relates to mental illness. ”

I am really excited to see where these ideas will go and what discoveries I make within these disciplines!

I did not expect a digital scholarship project to make me cry, but there I was, 7:30 on a Wednesday night wrapped in a blanket crying about a bear I had never met after I watched bear 71. Bear 71 is an interactive short film that uses real data from tracked wild animals in Alaska to tell the tale of one female bear and her interactions with people and society as it slowly infringes on her home. It creates an interactive map where the view can choose to follow the real travels of bear 71, or other wild animals in the area. The story of a bear and how the world around her is interesting as it is, but when combined with online and interesting tools to create an immersive world, the viewer is quickly drawn in.

This anecdote highlights what digital scholarship means to me. It’s the use of data and technology to take something and present it in a more engaging way. Articles and books have been the way of spreading information and ideas in the world of academia for almost as long as it has existed. Digital tools like test encoding, data visualization, interactive maps, timelines and more can present the same information in a way that puts control of it in the hands of the audience. A history of a given person could be written in a book or presented on an interactive timeline where the viewer can choose which events in a persons life they want to explore, and which they want to ignore.

These digital tools create an environment where information is constantly being presented in new ways, and these tools are pushed and expanded to be used in different ways. This creates an environment where sticking to traditionally accepted means of conveying information is no longer important, whats important is representing this information in a way that’s engaging and interesting.