Ebert Center for Film Studies Events, College of Media

Dr. Alfred L. Martin, Jr., Chair of the Department of Cinematic Arts at University of Miami, will be the keynote speaker at this year's Ebert Symposium. As a part of the Ebert Symposium’s theme, “Onscreen Fantasies/IRL Illusions: Fandom, Parasocial Relationships, and the Media,” Martin will be giving the keynote on the role of audiences in the curation of and the cultural meaning of cinema. He will also be drawing on his current research for Ease on Down the Road?: A Cultural History of the Wiz, weaving in the Symposium screening throughout the speech. 

This event is free and open to the public. An option to join via Zoom will also be available.

Martin is associate professor of media studies and chair of the Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of Miami. He is author of Fandom for Us, by Us: The Pleasures and Practices of Black Audiences (New York University Press, 2025) and The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom (Indiana University Press, 2021), editor of Rolling: Blackness and Mediated Comedy (Indiana University Press, 2024), and co-editor of The Golden Girls: Tales from the Lanai (Rutgers University Press, 2025). A former marketing communications executive and ballet dancer, in his spare time, Martin is a ballet teacher, coach, and choreographer.  

Presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies.