In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Don’t Call It a Comeback
  • Will Brooker, editor

Beretta E. Smith-Shomade. Racquel Gates. Miriam J. Petty. Anna Everett. Allyson Nadia Field. Mark D. Cunningham. Terri Francis. Nina Cartier. Zeinabu irene Davis.

At the SCMS Conference in March 2012, I visited the caucuses—the groups that, in the society’s words, aim “to provide advocacy, fellowship, and networking opportunities for those who have been historically un- or underrepresented within SCMS, professional organizations, and the academy, based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or marginalized economic status.” I started talking to colleagues like Jeff rey Masko, Miriam Petty, Patty Ahn, Dolores Tierney, and Caetlin Benson-Allott about how Cinema Journal could provide a space and platform for these scholarly communities through the In Focus section. Each group welcomed me warmly and enthusiastically, greeting my suggestions with ideas and creative energy. The times I spent at the caucus meetings were some of the most valuable I’ve had at an SCMS conference.

Patty Ahn. Julia Himberg. Damon R. Young. Corey K. Creekmur. Matthew Hays. Thomas Waugh. Lynne Joyrich. Quinn Miller. Audrey Yue. Kara Keeling.

By the following March, when I visited the caucuses again, the ideas for In Focus sections were firmly in shape. Editorial teams had been selected, and they were drawing up shortlists of topics, commissioning contributions. The leading queer scholar and mentor Alexander Doty had tragically died during that year, and the Queer Caucus editors adapted their section to honor him. The Women’s Caucus section was already in production. The African and African American Caucus was planning two distinct sections for two separate issues. I was so tired by the time I reached the Latino/a Caucus that I fell off my chair in the middle of their meeting. I think they forgave me.

Caetlin Benson-Allott. Diane Negra. Deborah Tudor. Eileen R. Meehan. Candace Moore. Alyxandra Vesey. Kara Herold. Vicki Callahan. Ana M. López. Rielle Navitski. Nicolas Poppe. Dolores Tierney.

At the SCMS conference of March 2014, we were able to look back proudly at the Women’s Caucus issue, and the Queer Caucus Cinema Journal, with its front-and back-cover tributes to Alex Doty. The African American Caucus, with an issue scheduled for that summer, had its cover projected on the wall of the meeting. The Latino/a Caucus had submitted its In Focus that month with a moving final line in untranslated Spanish, dedicated to colleague Laura Podalsky and her late mother. I met with Aboubakar Sanogo to discuss the African Caucus section he was editing. [End Page 1] The handshakes of 2012 had become hugs. It felt like we had been working on something together, for years.

Jude G. Akudinobi. Lindiwe Dovey. Moradewun Adejunmobi. Aboubakar Sanogo. Brian Hu. Vincent N. Pham. Shilpa Davé. Sylvia Chong. Peter X Feng. Celine Parreñas Shimizu. LeiLani Nishime. Jun Okada.

The African Caucus issue, with a stunning original cover by Sarah Zaidan, was published in February 2015. The Asian/Pacific American In Focus appeared in issue 56.3. Six sections edited by six groups that have historically been, and continue to be, marginalized and underrepresented, within society and within our Society for Cinema and Media Studies. I am incredibly grateful for what they have given the journal.

The cover for the African American In Focus was a very deliberate choice on the part of its three editors. It shows Samuel L. Jackson as DJ Love Daddy, at the midpoint of Do the Right Thing, invoking a roll call of artists from black musical genres. The editors offer their own roll call throughout the section’s introduction, honoring an intertextual range of inspirational black figures, from actors to academics: from Billy Dee Williams to Donald Bogle. This “naming ritual,” as they say—naming oneself, naming pioneers, naming the dead and the living—has the power of establishing lineage and community and carries a specific meaning within African American culture and history. I pay modest tribute to that tradition here.

That In Focus section opens with a quotation from LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out”: again, the editors use it with a specific meaning, but it could also apply more broadly to all the...

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