The Department of Performing and Media Arts follows a liberal arts program that emphasizes creative thought, intellectual growth, and performance skills. The faculty and staff are accomplished professionals who embrace a philosophy of training and mentoring within the context of a liberal arts education. Faculty teach courses and train students across the following areas: theatre, performance studies, acting and directing, design (lighting, sound, scene, costume), stagecraft, cinema and media studies, film and media production (analog and digital), dance, spoken word, voice and movement, and other areas in performing and media arts.
The department is housed in Cornell’s elegant Schwartz Center, which boasts three theatre performance spaces, a dance theatre and studios, film editing and production suites, film forum, classrooms, and scenery and costume shops. Opportunities abound for students to present their work through the department’s Student Laboratory Theatre Company, Dance Program and student film screenings, as well as via numerous student organizations on campus. Students can also take advantage of Cornell Cinema, which has been cited as one of the best campus film exhibition programs in the country. Cornell Cinema includes a media study library with extensive reference materials, publications, a film collection, and frequent workshops and presentations by guest artists and critics.
Department websiteHira Mahmood
Education
M.A., Cultural Studies, UC Davis
M.A., Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Georgia State University
Departments and programs
Milad Sotoudeh
Graduate Student
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- “Phantasmagoric Manifestations of the Modern City During the Pahlavi Era and Its Representation in Brick and Mirror”, S. Sotoudeh & A. Sayyad & Milad Sotoudeh, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, May 2022, page 1-21
- “Panopticon Surveillance on Iranian Women during the Pahlavi Era, with Concentration on the Visibility and Invisibility Paradigms: the case of Dead End" by Parviz Sayyad (1977), Milad Sotoudeh & S. Sotoudeh & A. Sayyad, Feminist Media Studies, August 2021, page 1-15
- “The Capacities of Haptic Perception in Persian- Islamic Art and its Function in Cinematic Expression: The Case of The Green Fire”, A. Sayyad & Milad Sotoudeh & S. Sotoudeh, BAGH-E NAZAR Journal, Volume 17, Issue 88, October 2020, Page 19 - 26.
- “The Role of Decoupage in Orientation and Moral Judgment of the Audience: Studying Two Iranian Movies, The Glass Agency and A Separation”, S. Esfandiary & S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh, Journal of Dramatic Arts and Music: Academic Journal of University of Art, Volume 11, Issue 21, Summer 2020, page 47- 65.
- “Child’s perception in Walter Benjamin’s reflections and its representation in The Runner (1984)”, S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh & A. Sayyad, Thinking and Child Quarterly, Volume 10, Issue 1, No 19, Summer and Autumn 2019, pages 125-148.
- “Female Flânerie and Transition from a Fetishized Object to an Observer-Subject: A Case Study on Cleo from 5 to 7”, A. Sayyad & S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh, Journal of Women in Culture and Art, Volume 11, Issue 1, Spring 2019, pages 1-23.
- “Aestheticism of Framing and Deframing in Iranian cinema from 2001 to 2011”, S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh & A. Alasti & M.J. Yousefian, Honar-Ha-Ye Ziba: Honar-Ha-Ye-Namayeshi Va Mosighi: Academic Journal of University of Tehran, Volume 21, Issue 2, autumn 2016, Pages 5-14.
- “The Analysis of Camera Movement Aesthetics in Iranian Cinema From 2001 to 2011”, S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh & A. Alasti & M.J. Yousefian, Journal of Dramatic Arts and Music: Academic Journal of University of Art, Volume 5, Issue 10, Autumn 2015, pages 49-66.
- “Dramatic Functions of Depth of field in Iranian cinema from 2001-2011”, S. Sotoudeh & Milad Sotoudeh & A. Alasti & M.J. Yousefian, Journal of Dramatic Arts and Music: Academic Journal of University of Art, Volume 4, Issue 8, Summer & Autumn 2014, Pages 51-66.
Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Books
- “Eastern Caressing Eyes: Persian-Islamic Arts, Haptic Moments, and Kiarostami’s Cinema”, Milad Sotoudeh & S. Sotoudeh & A. Sayyad, in Trends in Iranian Cinema: Local and Global Perspectives, Edited by B.M. Bakhtiari and M. Rahmati, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, (Accepted- Forthcoming).
- “The City in Fragments: Distraction, Flânerie, and Urban Modernity in Tehran, Studying Tehran, Conceptual Art by Mohammad Reza Aslani”, S. Sotoudeh & A. Sayyad & Milad Sotoudeh, in Handbook of Iranian Cinema, Edited by M. Langford & M. Ghorbankarimi & Z. Khosroshahi, I.B Tauris & Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, (Accepted- Forthcoming).
Education
- M.A. in Dramatic Literature, 2013, Tarbiat Modares University
- B.A. in Filmmaking, 2010, Soore University, Iran,
Departments and programs
Doorim Kim
Lecturer
Departments and programs
Andy Colpitts
Departments and programs
Keywords
Rurality, Theatre Historiography, Popular Performance, Musical Theatre, Political Theatre, Puppetry
Samuel N. W. Blake
Departments and programs
Keywords
Femme performance, effeminate performance, drag performance, queer performance, fat performance, fat studies, queer migrant performance, applied theatre, community based theatre, critical race theory, feminist theory, queer theory, embodied archives, performance ethnography, Shakespeare
Brian Sengdala
Departments and programs
Keywords
performance, Cambodian/ America, critical refugeehood, memory, sound, trauma, food, land/mines, disability, queer of color critique
Ariel Dela Cruz
Departments and programs
Keywords
queer studies; trans studies; Filipinx diasporic studies; care work studies; performance studies; gender and sexuality studies; affect studies; fat studies;
Victoria Sorensen
Departments and programs
Keywords
media theory and history, modernity, technology, cinema, feminism, materialism, queer theory, history of race in science.