Aashish Kumar

Degrees

MS, 1994, Indiana St Univ Terre Haute; MFA, 1994, CUNY Brooklyn Coll; MA, 1990, Univ Delhi; BA, 1988, Univ Delhi

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Bio

Professor Kumar has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in documentary, advocacy videos, interactive media, and television studies in the Radio/TV/Film Dept. He is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and social action scholar whose work turns a spotlight on issues such as emerging democracies, social stigmas, globalization, migration, civic engagement, and grassroots advocacy. His films have been shown in domestic and international film festivals, used in grassroots community advocacy, and distributed to academic institutions. Most recently he was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to spend six weeks this summer in Durban, South Africa, working with media students and faculty in developing strategies for grassroots community media work. This is Prof. Kumar’s second Fulbright Award – he is also the recipient of the Fulbright Senior Scholar award in 2008 which allowed him to spend a semester in India teaching graduate documentary students and working on his documentary film on reverse migrants. One of Prof. Kumar’s favorite courses at Hofstra is Media Action Project, in which students partner with nonprofit organizations and learn how to use media to stimulate change in society.  In 2014, based on successful partnerships built through that course, he was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Long Island Community Foundation for a collaborative electronic media training project for Long Island nonprofits.
Prof. Kumar’s most recent documentary follows the life of “reverse migrants'? – Indian high-technology workers whose jobs were moved to India from the United States.  “Software from the Hard Rocks,'? released in this summer 2014, explores how globalization transforms our sense of place and home.
Kumar has also been recognized for several films championing grassroots advocacy, including “The Community I Serve,'? which called for the humane treatment of those with mental illnesses by law enforcement.  It won “Best of Festival'? and the “Award of Excellence'? at the 2009 Festival of Media Arts by the Broadcast Education Association, and honorable mention a the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. His 2002 documentary, “Raising Our Voices,'? addressed hate-crime victims and has been screened at the Smithsonian Institute, the Dallas Asian-American Film Festival, and more than 200 academic institutions and community-based organizations. In 2003, “Raising Our Voices'? was added to the Library of Congress’s permanent collection of media related to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.   
Currently Prof. Kumar is working on an interactive-media documentary on the LGBTQ experiences of South Asian American millennials and their families. He also serves as the Co-Director for Hofstra University’s Center for Civic Engagement, a university institute designed to educate students in democratic values by actively engaging them as knowledgeable citizens in collaborative partnerships with their campus, local, state, national, and global communities. 

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Teaching Interests

Production pedagogy, television aesthetics, community media, advocacy, documentary, interactive documentary, virtual reality

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Research Interests

Participatory media; interactive documentary; immersive storytelling technologies

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Recent Courses Taught

Course	Title	Level
CSC 144F	VR / AR CREATION LAB	Undergraduate
CSC 144K	AR/VR STORYTELLING	Undergraduate
JRNL 180D	VIRTUAL REALITY STORYTELLING	Undergraduate
JRNL 180Z	VR / AR CREATION LAB	Undergraduate
RTVF 001	FOUNDATNS OF RTVF & NEW MEDIA	Undergraduate
RTVF 026	SINGLE-CAMERA TV PRODUCTION	Undergraduate
RTVF 040	INTRO TO VR STORYTELLING	Undergraduate
RTVF 065O	SPL TPC: VR/AR STORYTELLING	Undergraduate
RTVF 084	TV PRODUCTION: EPISODIC FICT	Undergraduate
RTVF 145	TV PROD: MEDIA ACTION PROJECTS	Undergraduate
RTVF 150	INDEP STUDY/READINGS	Undergraduate
RTVF 170	INTERNSHIP PROGRAM	Undergraduate
RTVF 180Z	SPL TPC: VR/AR CREATION LAB	Undergraduate