David A. Rice

Andy Rice is an assistant professor in Film Studies and Media and Communication in the department of Media, Journalism & Film at Miami University in Ohio. He conducts research on the feeling of camerawork in community settings and makes documentary films with collaborators about institutional histories, identity, and social change. His book Political Camerawork: Documentary and the Lasting Impact of Reenacting Historical Trauma (2023, Indiana University Press) analyzes decisions made while doing camerawork to consider the forces at play in simulating, reflecting on, and representing traumatic historical events in community performances and documentary films about such performances. Case studies in the book focus on the politics of commemoration in war reenactment, documentary work about military training simulations during the Iraq War, and representations of early 21st century restorative justice activism in Georgia on issues of Black voting rights and lynching history, such as the Moore’s Ford Lynching Reenactment and the documentary film Always in Season. His article publications in Journal of Film and Video, JumpCut, Senses of Cinema, The Scholar and Feminist Online, and Catalyst as well as several edited volumes offer takes on media production pedagogy in higher education, feminist performative documentary, viewfinderless camerawork, disability life writing in nonfiction film, and camerawork as a method in media phenomenology. His notable recent filmmaking credits include Spirits of Rebellion: Black Independent Cinema from Los Angeles (2017, Cinema Guild, co-producer, editor, and cinematographer), a feature about the LA Rebellion film movement directed by Zeinabu irene Davis, and Bittersweet: Black College Life in a Predominantly White Institution (2023, director/co-producer), a feature and archival project about the history of Black life and activism at Miami University. He has also directed and produced Reading Freedom Summer (2019), Unhooked (2017), Beyond the Fifth Dimension: University-Community Partnerships in Learning (2014), About Face! Reenacting in a Time of War (2010, director/producer), and a range of commissioned works for Harvard University and the Acadia Summer Art Program in the early 2000s. Rice was also the ASPIRE Fellow in Socially Engaged Media at the University of California, Los Angeles from 2014-2017, where he designed and taught experimental courses in documentary production for social change to students in liberal arts majors. He holds a PhD in Communication and MA in History from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University. Now he is working to develop courses, institutions, projects, and recurring events that will help nurture a civics-oriented filmmaking culture in the Midwest.