Rate My Professor Andy Rice

Andy Rice, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Media and Communication and Film Studies in the Department of Media, Journalism, and Film at Miami University in the College of Arts and Science. He earned a Ph.D. in Communication and an M.A. in History from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University. Rice's research examines the impacts of the analog-to-digital transition on documentary camerawork, editing, and reception, particularly in reenactment events, along with performative documentary, sensory ethnographic film, viewfinderless camerawork, and documentary production pedagogy. With over 20 years in nonfiction filmmaking, he previously held the ASPIRE Fellowship in Socially Engaged Media at UCLA from 2014 to 2017, designing experimental courses in documentary production for social change for liberal arts undergraduates.

Rice authored the book Political Camerawork: Documentary and the Lasting Impact of Reenacting Historical Trauma (Indiana University Press, 2023), which theorizes simulation documentaries that connect historical trauma—such as Vietnam War films, Iraq War training simulations, and lynching reenactments—to present-day responsibility through performance techniques. His articles on performative documentary, sensory ethnographic film, viewfinderless camerawork, and media pedagogy appear in the Journal of Film and Video, Jump Cut, The Scholar and Feminist Online, Senses of Cinema, and Catalyst. Notable films include Spirits of Rebellion: Black Independent Cinema from Los Angeles (2016, dir. Zeinabu irene Davis, 101 min.), where he co-produced, shot, and edited, earning the 2016 African Movie Academy Award for Best Diaspora Documentary and the 2017 University Film Video Association Best Documentary Feature; Banded (2024) on Midwest bird banding and conservation; Reading Freedom Summer (2020) reflecting on 1964 Freedom Summer letters; and Generation COVID: Coming of Age While Six Feet Apart (2020, 42 min.) made with students. At Miami University, Rice has secured grants for an augmented reality documentary on campus racial history and leads projects like Lived Experiences Through Storytelling and the Inside Hollywood program to foster civically oriented filmmaking.