The Center for Documentary Studies’ DocX initiative is intended to evolve as the practice of documentary evolves, driven by what documentary artists need to make their work most resonant in the world.
Seventh-graders invited by CDS exhibitions director Courtney Reid-Eaton to Myra Greene's My White Friends exhibit, 2014. Photograph by Katie Hyde.
The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University is proud to announce its new Curator’s Award for Insight and Innovation to recognize both established and emerging Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) curators in the documentary field writ large.
Callanish I, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, 2010 | Private Collections
A new initiative developed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Legacy Project (SLP), the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the Duke Libraries, the New Georgia Project, BYP 100, and the Ohio Voice and made possible by a $630,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aims to document how today’s activists built their social and political movements.
The Scene on Radio podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University has been nominated for a 2021 Peabody Award for its Season 4 series on democracy. Created and produced by CDS audio director John Biewen and distributed by PRX, the podcast aims to explore human experience and society.
Foxfire Ranch in Waterford, Mississippi; photo by free feral.
The Center for Documentary Studies is proud to recognize free feral, a student in its continuing education program (CDS Courses) who will receive their Certificate in Documentary Arts and present their final project in an online event on May 14, 2021. Filmmaker Randy Benson, a longtime CDS Courses instructor, worked with feral in a Final Project Seminar as they completed their certificate program of study and substantial documentary work.
Zoom screenshot of Fall 2020 Capstone Seminar students with CDS Lecturing Fellow Nancy Kalow (top left)
In 2021, the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) will embark on a new collaboration with three Charlotte, North Carolina–based partners to gather, preserve, and share local histories—stories, documents, visual imagery, and memories—about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities in Mecklenburg County. CDS, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Johnson C. Smith University, and the Levine Museum of the New South will map out and implement the three-year “Living Archive” project, made possible with a $250,000 planning grant from The Duke Endowment.
Deirdre Haj, director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival since January 2010, is stepping down from her position, effective March 15, 2021. Full Frame is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
The Center for Documentary Studies is proud to recognize five students in its continuing education program, CDS Courses, who will receive their Certificates in Documentary Arts and present their final projects in an online event on December 4, 2020: Marjee Chmiel, Paul Hilbink, LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, Vann Thomas Powell, and Valerie Zink. Filmmaker Randy Benson, a longtime CDS Courses instructor, worked with these artists in a Final Project Seminar as they completed their certificate program of study and substantial documentary work.
