Education
Ph.D., American Studies, Brown University, 2011
Dissertation: “‘Canned History’: American Newsreels and the Commodification of Reality, 1927-1945.”*
Directors: Professors Philip Rosen and Susan Smulyan
* winner of the Joukowsky Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2011
Master of Arts, American Civilization, Brown University, 2004
Master of Arts, History, University of British Columbia, 2001
Thesis: “‘Real War and No Make-Believe’: The Spectacle of the Mexican Revolution on Screen.” Supervisor: Professor William French
Bachelor of Arts, University of British Columbia, 1999
Majored in history with a minor in 19th century studies.
Fields of Research and Teaching Interest
Film history; non-theatrical film; visual culture studies; communication history; documentary studies; race and representation; television history; American studies; African American Studies; 19th and 20th Century US history; experiential learning
Academic Positions
2017-21 Lecturer, Film Studies, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University (SFU)
2018-20 Sessional instructor, Media History, Emily Carr University of Art + Design
2018-21 Sessional Instructor, Film Studies, University of British Columbia
2016-17 Sessional Instructor, Film Studies, School for the Contemporary Arts, SFU
2016-17 Visiting Scholar, American Studies, Franklin & Marshall College
2013-16 Visiting Assistant Professor, American Studies, Franklin & Marshall College
2012-13 Visiting Assistant Professor, American Studies, Colby College
2010 Sessional Instructor, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, SFU
2008 Sessional Instructor, History, SFU
2008 Sessional Instructor, Film Studies Program, University of British Columbia
2006 Teaching Fellow, American Civilization, Brown University
2003-4 Teaching Assistant, American Civilization, Brown University
Research Publications
Book
News Parade: The American Newsreel and the Mediation of the Public Sphere, 1927-1945. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020).
Articles and Chapters
Co-editor, “Teaching with Nontheatrical and Useful Media,” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Teaching Dossier, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/teachingmedia
“Material Pasts and Futures in the Newsreel Archive” in Laura U. Marks et al., “Streaming Media’s Environmental Impact,” Media+Environment, October 15, 2020.
Co-author, “Organizing Precarious Labor in Film and Media Studies: A Manifesto,” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, no. 4 (2020): 1-7.
“Teamwork: Carlton Moss, US Propaganda Film, and the Fight for Black Visibility in the Second World War,” in Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam, Eds. Allied Communication during the Second World War: National and Transnational Networks (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), 81-93.
“From Canada and Back Again: Montreal’s Associated Screen News and the Transnational Flow of Non-Fiction Film before WWII,” in Mark Cooper, Sara Beth Levavy, Ross Melnick, and Mark Williams, Eds. Rediscovering US Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2018), 173-185.
“‘Public Forums of the Screen’: Contesting Modernity at the Newsreel Cinema,” in Vanessa Schwartz and Jason Hill, eds. Getting the Picture: The History & Visual Culture of the News (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), 161-167.
Book Review: Learning With the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States. Edited by Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible. The Moving Image, 14:2 (Fall 2014), 113-115.
“Double Vision: World War Two, Racial Uplift, and the All-American Newsreel’s Pedagogical Address,” in Charles Acland and Haidee Wasson, eds. Useful Cinema: Expanding Film Contexts (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2011), 263-288.
“Fox News,” “NPR,” and “Reality TV,” in Mari Yoshihara and Yujin Yaguchi, eds. Gendai Amerika no Kiiwaado [Keywords of Contemporary America] (Tokyo: Chuo-koron-shinsha, 2006).
Non-Academic Writing
Invited Lectures
“News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle,” curated newsreel program and online Q+A with Zoë Druick, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, July 25, 2020
“American Newsreels and News Spectatorship,” invited seminar at the Visual Studies Research Institute, University of Southern California, February 26, 2014.
“Heroes of the Lens” and “Oriental Madness”: Newsreel Cameramen and the Imperial Gaze during the Sino-Japanese War,” Invited lecture at Colby College, April 10, 2012.
“Commodifying Reality: American Newsreels and the Spectacle of Vision." Invited lecture at the University of British Columbia, December 1, 2011
Conference Papers
“Material Pasts and Futures in the Newsreel Archive,” presented online at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Media and Environment Scholarly Interest Group Virtual Conference, April 4, 2020
“The Living Blueprint: Film and the Exploitation of Landscape in Canada’s Logging Industry,” Visible Evidence XXV, University of Southern California, July 24-28, 2019.
“River of Paper: The Practice and Aesthetics of Resource Extraction in the Logging Films of British Columbia,” paper presented at Film Studies Association of Canada, University of British Columbia, June 4-6, 2019
“A Different Color: Rethinking the Politics and Aesthetics of Race on Film through the Home Movies of Matthew Ko,” presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Toronto, March 13-18, 2018
“Teamwork: Carlton Moss, the US Office of War Information and the fight for Black Visibility in WWII,” presented at the Information and its Communication in Wartime Conference, July 25-26, 2017
“Difference in Colour: Seeing Race in the Home Movies of Matthew Ko,” presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada, Ryerson University, May 27-9, 2017.
“Double V for Visibility: Memory and Forgetting in the Signal Corps Archive,” presented at Visible Evidence XXIII, Bozeman, MT, August 11-14, 2016
“New Histories of the American Newsreel,” workshop participant at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta, March 30- April 3, 2016
“Watching King: The Filmed Record and the Activation of Public Memory on Screen,” presented at Visible Evidence XXII, Toronto, August 19-12, 2015
“From Canada and Back Again: Montreal’s Associated Screen News and the Transnational Flow of Non-Fiction Film before WWII,” presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Montreal, March 25-29, 2015
“History Unchained: Tarantino’s Cinematic Excess and the Pleasure and Pain of Representing Race on Film,” presented at the American Studies Association, Los Angeles, November 10, 2014.
“Canadian Newsreels with an American Accent: Roy Tash and the Associated Screen News,” presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada, University of Victoria, June 4-6, 2013.
“Rethinking History in the Newsreel Archive: Orphan Film as Dialectical Image,” presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada, Concordia University, June 2-4, 2010.
“‘Come along. We’re Going to the Trans-Lux to Hiss Roosevelt’: Contesting Modernity at the Newsreel Cinema, 1929-1944,” presented at Visible Evidence XVI, University of Southern California, August 13-17, 2009
“The Films of James Smith: National History, Community Memory and Amateur film in Canada’s North,” presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada, Carleton University, May 28-31, 2009.
“‘Sensational Pictures, Made by Cameramen 75 Yards Away’: Newsreel Cameramen, the Sino-Japanese War and the Mediation of Distance in the American Newsreel,” presented at the Film Studies Association of Canada, University of British Columbia, June 2-4, 2008.
“‘Around the World in Sight and Sound’: The Newsreel in Trans-National Context,” panel convener and chair, Film Studies Association of Canada, University of British Columbia, June 2-4, 2008.
“The News Parade: Spectacle, Sequence and Sense Making in the American Newsreel, 1927-1942,” presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, Illinois, March 8-11, 2007.
“Educating the Race: Inequality and Pedagogy in the Films of All-American News,” presented at the Orphan Film Symposium 2006: Science, Industry and Education, Columbia, South Carolina, March 22-25, 2006.
“Pop Culture Freak Show – Zine Culture as/and the Bearded Lady,” presented at Blowing Up the Margins, the Simon Fraser University English Graduate conference, Burnaby, British Columbia, October 7-8, 2005.
“‘Amazing! Sensational! Authentic!’ True Magazine and the Selling of a Manly Reality,” presented at the Canadian Association for American Studies, Winnipeg Manitoba, October 17-19, 2003.
“‘Real War and No Make-Believe’: American News Films and the ‘Reel’ Mexican Revolution,” presented at the 12th Annual Southland Conference, University of California at Los Angeles, May 11, 2001.
“Spectacular Expo-sé: World’s Fairs, Commodity, Culture and the Microcosmic Universal,” presented at the 26th Annual Qualicum Conference, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, February 2-4, 2001.
Awards, Grants and Fellowships
Simon Fraser University Publication Grant, 2020
Joukowsky Outstanding Dissertation Award, Brown University, 2011
Dissertation Fellowship, Brown University, 2006-2007
Research Travel Grant, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, 2006
Doctoral Fellowship, Social Science and Humanities Research Council, 2004-2006
Graduate School Fellowship, Brown University, 2002-2004
Film Festival Work
2016-21 Programming Committee, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver, BC
2018-21 Programming Committee, Vancouver Podcast Festival, Vancouver, BC
2013-16 Screening Committee, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver, BC
2013 Director, Points of View Film Festival, Colby College
2010-12 Development Director, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver, BC
Pedagogical Development
Faculty Project Lead, “Facilitating discipline-specific literacy development for multilingual students in CA 186,” in collaboration with the Centre for English Language Learning, Teaching, and Research (CELLTR), Simon Fraser University, 2018-2019.
Workshop participant, “Encouraging Revision,” “Inclusive Pedagogy,” “Is Your Writing Course ESL Ready?” Franklin & Marshall Faculty Center, 2014-2016
Visiting Professor at JWT, Advertising Education Foundation Visiting Professor Program, June 1-14, 2014
Seminar participant in “Faculty to Faculty Conversation on Teaching”, Simon Fraser University, November 21, 2008
Individual Teaching Consultation, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University, Spring 2006
Sheridan Teaching Seminar, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University, 2003-2004
Courses Taught
Film Studies
“Introduction to Film Studies” (SFU/UBC)
“Art and the Moving Image” (SFU)
“History and Aesthetics of Cinema I, I895-1950” (SFU)
“History and Aesthetics of Cinema II, I950-present” (SFU)
“Cinema in Canada” (SFU)
“Early Cinema” (UBC)
“Experimental Film and Video” (SFU)
“Introduction to Film Theory” (SFU)
“Documentary Film (in/as) History” (UBC)
“Race Movies: Other Voices in North American Film” (UBC/F&M, upper-level seminar)
“Imagining the Past: Film, Memory, History” (Colby/ECUAD, upper-level seminar)
“Cinema and the Anthropocene” (SFU, topics course)
“Issues in Contemporary Documentary Film and Media” (SFU, topics course)
Visual Culture
“American Advertising” (F&M)
“Global Visions: Imagining Transnational America” (F&M, upper-level seminar)
“Seeing America: Visual Culture and Modernity, 1839-1939” (F&M, seminar)
“History of Photography” (Colby)
“Television Culture in the Postwar United States” (Colby)
History and Cultural Studies
“Introduction to American Studies” (F&M)
“Introduction to African American Studies” (F&M)
“Race, Gender and Representation” (SFU)
“Consumer Society in the United States, 1893-1939” (SFU, writing intensive)
Junior Seminar in American Studies: Consuming America (Colby, req. for majors)
Experiential Learning
“Beyond 150: Creative Community MashUp (SFU)
“Film Festivals: Cultures and Practices” (Colby)
First Year Seminars / Academic skills
“Connections 2 Seminar: Voices of Resistance” (F&M)
“Slicks and Pulps to Teens and Zines: US Magazines and Consumer Culture.” (Brown)
Service
Co-Chair, Precarious Labor Organization, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2020 – present
Committee Member, Equity Committee, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University, 2020-present
Committee Member, Awards Committee, School for the Contemporary Arts, SFU, 2017-present
Co-Chair, Non-Theatrical Film Scholarly Interest Group, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2016 – 2020
Faculty Advisory Board Member, Alice Drum Women’s Center, F&M, 2014 – 2016
Admission Interviewer, Brown Alumni Schools Committee, 2009 – 2013
Documentary Media Society, Board Member, 2009 – 2010
Graduate Representative, Dept. of American Civilization, Brown University, 2003 – 2004
Teaching Assistant and Tutor, Humanities 101, UBC, 2000 – 2001
Professional Membership
American Studies Association
Film Studies Association of Canada
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Visible Evidence