Biography
Nathan Roberts received his PhD from the Film and Visual Studies program at Harvard University in 2023. Synthesizing methodologies from film and media philosophy, intellectual history, and formal analysis, his research traces how the media concept has sublimated core ethical energies that may be resuscitated in the present. By engaging a variety of works––including Isaac Julien’s ten-screen 2019 installation Lessons of the Hour––through what he terms a “media ethic,” Nathan demonstrates how technical forms may reform our ethical sensibilities in generative ways. His work ultimately argues that such collective reformation ought to be a central concern of film and media theory, and shape the pedagogical priorities of the discipline. An ardent and award-winning instructor, Nathan has presented at numerous international conferences. He also teaches courses for the Harvard Extension School. Nathan has curated for the Harvard Film Archive, published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, written as a memoir about media, served as a juror at the Lake Stevens Film Festival, and he is currently cowriting a feature screenplay called Chambers Bay with the director E.C. Timmer.