Middlebury College is a top-tier residential liberal arts college, known for its excellent programs across the humanities, languages, arts, and sciences, hosted at its pastoral Vermont campus. The Department of Film and Media Culture is one of the oldest film studies programs at a liberal arts college, and has evolved into a leader in the field. The Film & Media Culture Department currently has six dedicated tenure-track faculty with international reputations, a full-time technologist, and a strong reputation as a site of innovative teaching and scholarship. Middlebury has emerged as a leader in digital humanities through the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative, with this workshop as an outgrowth of this program as part of the Digital Liberal Arts Summer Institute.

The workshop will convene in the state-of-the-art digital production facilities in Middlebury College’s Film & Media Culture Department, located in the Axinn Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, which opened in 2008. These facilities, available to participants 24 hours a day, include four multimedia computer labs, each equipped with the latest versions of the software needed for to produce digitally based scholarship, including Adobe Creative Suite for video editing and finishing, and an array of sound production applications. In addition, the department’s facilities include access to a range of other equipment – including audio records, microphones, and an audio recording and editing studio which can be used in the workshop. Middlebury also hosts a video collection of over 10,000 DVDs & Blu-rays to provide access to a wide range of moving-image media to use in our study and scholarship. The college’s ample technological and logistical support will allow participants to focus fully on the work at hand.

As a residential liberal arts college, Middlebury will provide appropriate housing for this workshop. The participants will all reside in a single residential hall in individual ADA-compliant rooms. In addition, participants will eat together in one of Middlebury’s excellent dining halls, with meal options to attend to any specific dietary needs. We will help arrange transportation to and from Burlington International Airport, as well as provide parking for regional participants who choose to drive to Middlebury. Additionally, summer in a Vermont small town has an idyllic quality well-suited to a productive learning community. In short, the tight-knit environment of Middlebury over the summer will provide an ideal setting for this immersive exploration.