The Media and the Moving Image Initiative aims to coordinate and enhance the University
of Houston’s rich creative and critical programs in visual, literary, and media arts.
With resources ranging from production and research at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communications; a graduate certificate in Cinema Studies from World and Classical Languages; Art, Music, Theatre and Dance in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts; digital media in the College of Technology; the Program in Creative Writing and numerous faculty throughout the humanities and social sciences, UH helps train new generations of the creative class whose vision and skills will shape the local and global culture.
Film scholar, English department faculty, and MMI Chair Karen Fang was recently featured in KHOU Good Day Houston and UH Today for her new book, Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong (Rutgers University Press 2025). The book, the first and only full-length biography of the Chinese immigrant artist, centenarian, and Disney Legend who helped make Bambi, was also named Honorable Mention in the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award for Adult Nonfiction.
Hear about MMI from CLASS Dean O'Connor, Valenti Director Vardeman, and others, in our new video!
More than two dozen faculty from a variety of UH colleges and programs work and teach in fields related to media and the moving image. Our faculty include filmmakers and photographers, animators and performers, screenwriters and journalists, and film critics, scholars, and journalists.
