CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Associate Professor Chris Straayer

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Associate Professor Richard Allen

The Department of Cinema Studies is one of the first university departments devoted to the history, theory, and aesthetics of film and the moving image. The approach to cinema is interdisciplinary and international in scope and is concerned with understanding motion pictures in terms of the material practices that produce them and within which they circulate. While film constitutes the primary object of study, the department also considers other media that fall within the realm of sound/image studies (e.g., broadcast television, video art, and online technologies) to be within its purview.

Graduate programs leading to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees are offered jointly by the Graduate School of Arts and Science and the Tisch School of the Arts through the department.

Graduate students may take a production course only in the summer through the Depart-ment of Film and Television. Students enrolled in the Certificate Program in Culture and Media are required to take further production courses during the academic year.

Most courses in cinema studies include extensive film screenings that are supplemented by a weekly cinematheque. Students also have access to extensive film and film-related resources in the department’s George Amberg Study Center. In addition, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library houses a substantial video collection that is located in the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media. Other New York City institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and the Anthology Film Archives offer further invaluable resources for the film student.

Faculty

Richard Allen, Associate Professor; Chair, Department of Cinema Studies. Ph.D. 1989 (theatre arts), California (Los Angeles); M.A. 1983 (film studies), East Anglia; B.A. 1981 (philosophy, politics, and economics), Oxford.
Film theory and aesthetics; psychoanalysis; auteur studies.

Howard Besser, Professor. Ph.D. 1988 (library and information studies), M.L.S. 1977, B.A. 1976 (media), California (Berkeley).
New media; archiving and preservation.

Jung-Bong Choi, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2005, M.A. 2000, Iowa; B.A. 1996, Sogang.
Technology, cyborg, and post-humanity; Korean and Japanese media/cinema practices; nation-state and global/ regionalization.

Ed Guerrero, Professor. Ph.D. 1989, California (Berkeley); M.F.A. 1972, San Francisco Art Institute; B.A. 1972, San Francisco State.
Race and representation; black cinema.

Mona Jimenez, Research Assistant Professor. B.A. 1990 (studio art with video concentration), SUNY (Brockport).
Independent media; electronic media; archiving and preservation.

Jonathan R. Kahana, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2001 (English), Rutgers; M.A. 1992 (English), Minnesota; B.A. 1990 (English), B.F.A. 1988 (film production), York.
History and theory of documentary film.

Antonia Lant, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1986 (history of art), M.Phil. 1983, Yale; B.A. 1979 (history of art), Leeds.
Silent film history; feminist film criticism and filmmaking; 19th-century art history.

Anna McCarthy, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1995, M.A. 1991, Northwestern; B.A. 1989, Wesleyan.
Media and television studies; film genres.

Dana Polan, Professor. Doctorat d’Etat 1987, Sorbonne; Ph.D. 1980 (modern thought and literature), M.A. 1977 (modern thought and literature), Stanford; B.A. 1975 (film, drama, and literature), Cornell.
International film and media theory; genre studies; study of film scholarship and philosophy.

William G. Simon, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1973 (cinema studies), M.A. 1970 (cinema studies), New York; B.S. 1965 (film and communication arts), Boston.
Film and narratology; Orson Welles; history of Italian film.

Robert Sklar, Professor. Ph.D. 1965 (history of American civilization), Harvard; B.A. 1958, Princeton.
Film and culture; historiographic methods of cinema studies.

Robert P. Stam, Professor. Ph.D. 1976 (comparative literature), California (Berkeley); M.A. 1966 (English literature), Indiana.
Third World film; U.S. independent film; semiotics.

Chris Straayer, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1988 (radio, television, and film), Northwestern; M.A. 1979 (feminist studies).
Film theory; sex and gender; video art; queer theory.

Allen Weiss, Associate Teacher, Cinema Studies, Performance Studies. Ph.D. 1989 (cinema studies), New York; Ph.D. 1980 (philosophy), SUNY (Stony Brook); B.A. 1974 (philosophy), Queens College (CUNY).
History and theory of avant-garde cinema, theatre, and sound.

Zhang Zhen, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1998, Chicago; M.A. 1993, Iowa; B.A. 1991, Temple (Tokyo).
Chinese cinema; film history; silent film.

AFFILIATED FACULTY IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Manthia Diawara, Comparative Literature; Faye Ginsburg, Anthropology; David Slocum, Academic and Student Life; George C. Stoney, Film and Television.

VISITING FACULTY

The department regularly invites faculty to teach courses. Visiting faculty have included Joseph Anderson, John Belton, Richard Dyer, Thomas Elsaesser, Luke Gibbons, Christine Gledhill, John Handhardt, Joke Hermes, Kyoko Hirano, J. Hoberman, David James, Isaac Julien, Gertrude Koch, Moya Luckett, William Luhr, Babette Mangolte, Ranjani Mazumdar, Laura Mulvey, Charles Musser, Richard Pena, M. M. Serra, Jeff Smith, Juan Suarez, Radha Subramanyam, Linda Tadic, Patty White, Peter Wollen, Sarah Ziebell Mann, and Slovaj Zizek. The department also holds colloquia throughout the year with scholars and filmmakers as guest speakers.

FACULTY EMERITA

Annette Michelson.