The Critical Function Workshop
Statement of Purpose
“How do we intervene?” These opening lines from Serge Daney’s essay, “The Critical Function,” animate The Critical Function Workshop, a gathering dedicated to writing, criticism, and intellectual community. We provide a regular workshop aimed at comments, feedback, and criticism of works-in-progress on topics ranging from moving images, visual culture, aesthetics, and mass media. We are dedicated to presenting works of both theory and history, aesthetics and politics. The workshop provides a nonhierarchical space for both graduate students and professors to share and respond to each other’s work.
History
The workshop was founded in the summer 2023 by Thomas Quist and Meghan Romano, who ran it from the fall of 2023 to the spring of 2025. From the Fall of 2025 to the present, it has been run by Thomas Quist and Lawrence Garcia.
Archive
Please see Events for upcoming Workshops.
September 11th, 2025: Thomas Quist, “Leaving the Cinema and Leaving the Cinema (Imago)” | Respondent: John Paul Ricco
October 6th, 2025: Kanika Lawton, "Ontological Collapse: On the Duration of Anti-Blackness" | Respondent: æryka jourdaine hollis o’neil
November 20th, 2025: Stephen Schwartz, “Melancholy Days: Hard Times & Poetry in the Film Press” |Respondent: Charlie Keil
January 19th, 2026: Nikole McGregor, “Embodied Accents” |Respondent: John Shiga, TMU
February 23rd, 2026: Hayden Bytheway, "Being Mad About Cows" |Respondent: James Cahill
March 12, 2026: Mert Örsler, "Cosmopolitan Multitude and Polysemous Meta-Image” | Respondent: Sara Saljoughi
April 2nd, 2026: Meghan Romano. “Charles Eames, Cinema, and Infrastructure at the ‘Crossroads of the World’” | Mock Job Talk
September 19th, 2024: Mynt Marsellus, “The Fear and Fantasy of Necessary Inexpressiveness: Roland Barthes’ ‘Death of the Author’ and Ordinary Language Philosophy” |Respondent: Thomas Quist
October 21st, 2024: Andy Lee, “Invisible Bodies in Virtual Space: Playing Counter-Strike with Merleau-Ponty” | Respondent: Nikole McGregor
November 14th, 2024: Elizabeth Wijaya, “This Tree is a Witness: Cold War Histories and Racialized Bodies in Lau Kek Huat’s Cinema" | Respondent: Brian Price
January 30th, 2025: Erin Mick, “Eulogies” | Respondent: Petra Totten
February 24th, 2025: Eva Theodoridou, “Modernities, Greece’s Haunting Continuities, and Transnational Synergies a Decolonizing Tools” |Respondent: Zdenko Mandušić
June 10th, 2025: Murray Smith, "The Reality of (Screen) Characters”
September 14th, 2023: Kate Russell, “The Comedic Form of Cult Images” | Respondent: Meghan Romano
October 26th, 2023: Sam Reimer, “Early Receptions of Top Gun, Or (the History of) Homoeroticism as We Know It” | Respondent: Nadine Chan
November 23rd, 2023: Nadine Chan, “In the Open Air: Outdoor Cinema and 'Atmosphere of Mind” | Respondent: James Cahill
November 30th, 2023: Patrick Marshall, “State Violence, State Control: On Costa-Gavras’s Cinematic Political Theory” | Mock Job Talk
January 11th, 2024: Meghan Romano, “Crossroads” | Respondent: Thomas Quist
February 29th, 2024: Srijita Banerjee, “Collecting Animation” |Respondent: Brian Price
April 4th, 2024: “What is the Function of Criticism?” – Roundtable with Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adam Nayman, Saffron Maeve, and Lawrence Garcia, moderated by Thomas Quist
Past Graduate Student Conferences
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Formations Keynote Speaker: Jodie Mack (Dartmouth College) |
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Exit Signs, Signs of Exit Keynote Speaker: Jean-Thomas Tremblay, York University |
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Fragmentation Keynote Speaker: Maggie Hennefeld, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities |
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Bad Objects Keynote Speaker: Cáel M. Keegan |
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Altered States Keynote Speaker: Kemi Adeyemi, University of Washington |
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Spectre Keynote Speaker: David Marriott, Penn State |
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Friendship Keynote Speaker: Salomé Skvirksy, University of Chicago |
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Fluidity Keynote Speaker: Luka Arsenjuk, University of Maryland |
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Vanishing Points Keynote Speaker: Eric Cazdyn, University of Toronto |
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The Unknown Keynote Speakers: Markos Hadjioannou, Duke University; John Greyson, York University |