Symposium on the Cinema of George A. Romero

Join together with a distinguished panel of artists, screenwriters, and scholars for conversations about the work of George A. Romero and his immense impact on the horror genre, on cinema, and on popular culture.

Panelists include the Guggenheim award–winning film and video artist Peggy Ahwesh, screenwriter and director Adam Simon (The American Nightmare, Salem [WGN, 2013–2017]), and scholars Tom Gunning (University of Chicago, author of The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Modernity), Joan Hawkins (Indiana University, author of Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant Garde), and Isabel Cristina Pinedo (Hunter College, author of Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing). Their discussion will be moderated by Adam Lowenstein (University of Pittsburgh, author of Shocking Representations: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film) and Adam Hart (University of Pittsburgh). The symposium will also include a screening of Simon’s documentary The American Nightmare (2000), an exploration of the radical horror cinema of the 1970s.

Part of Romero Lives!, the citywide celebration of the life and legacy of George A. Romero, the Pittsburgh filmmaker behind Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Creepshow (1982), and many, many more.

Schedule

• 9:30 a.m. Doors open; coffee is available
• 10–10:15 a.m. Adam Lowenstein’s opening remarks
• 10:15–11 a.m. Panel 1: George Romero and American Independent Cinema
• 11:15 a.m.–noon Panel 2: George Romero and Horror/Genre Cinema
• noon–1 p.m. Break for lunch
• 1–2:45 p.m. Screening of The American Nightmare with introduction by filmmaker Adam Simon, followed by Q&A with Simon and interviewees Tom Gunning and Adam Lowenstein
• 3–4:30 p.m. Panel 3: George Romero and Politics

Presented by the University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center and Carnegie Museum of Art.