March 12, 2007

Film scholar Rich receives James Brudner Award from Yale University

By Jennifer McNulty

Film scholar B. Ruby Rich has been named the recipient of the 2007 James Brudner Award, which is presented each year by the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University.

B. Ruby Rich Photo: Jennifer McNulty

Rich, an assistant professor of community studies, will deliver the annual Brudner Lecture on April 5 at Yale University, with a reception following. Her talk, entitled, "From ID to IQ: New Queer Cinema Then and Now," will trace the generational shifts in storytelling strategies that have occurred during the 15-year movement.

"In a cinematic landscape that sweeps from Poison to D.E.B.S. and from Go Fish to Brokeback Mountain, it's time to reconsider both genre and audience," said Rich, who will explore the parameters of contemporary production and identity politics in a world of branding.

Rich, a film critic and cultural commentator, coined the term "New Queer Cinema" in articles written in 1992 for the Village Voice and Sight and Sound. She joined the UCSC faculty in 2004 to participate in the establishment of the master's program in social documentation in community studies.                   

The James Robert Brudner Memorial Prize and Lecture celebrates lifetime accomplishment and world-class scholarly contributions in the field of lesbian and gay studies. Recipients receive a cash prize and give a public lecture. Brudner, a city planner, musician, and photographer, established the prize and lecture in his will. He died of AIDS-related illness in 1998. Previous recipients include Matthew Coles, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Gay and Lesbian Rights Project; scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedwick; historians John D'Emilio and George Chauncey; and philosopher Judith Butler.