Department of English

Academic Specialty:

Film history (particularly US), film theory, television history, digital media, critical theory, and film and philosophy.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh

Selected Publications:

BOOKS

Editor. The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory. Oxford University Press, 2022. 

Co-editor. Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances, Volume 1: America. Co-edited with Murray Pomerance. Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

Co-editor. Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances, Volume 2: International. Co-edited with Murray Pomerance. Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism. Oxford University Press, 2015.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

“The Digital Human Something; or, The Case of Miquela.” Screen. Vol. 63, No. 1. Spring 2022. pp.130–136.

“Political Humor, from Dry to Wet.” Cultural Critique. Vol. 112, Summer 2021. pp.1-23, 2021.- Winner: Jack Rosenbalm Prize for Scholarship in American Humor, American Humor Association 

“When Movies Get Sick.” Critical Inquiry. Vol. 48, No. S2. Winter. pp. 17-24, 2021. 

“Romantic Comedy and the Virtues of Predictability.” New Review of Film and Television Studies, Guest ed. Maria San Filippo. Vol. 18, No. 1, 2020.

 “Stanley Cavell and The World Heard.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, Guest Eds. Daniel Morgan and Jennifer Fay. Vol. 42, no. 1-2, 2020. pp. 20–48, 2020. - Reprinted in The Thought of Stanley Cavell and Cinema. Ed. David LaRocca. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2020.

 “Clay, Ink, Documentary, Set: On Teaching Casablanca.” The Cine-Files. Issue 9, 2015. 

“Toward a Theory of Voice-Over through Brief Encounter.” World Picture Journal. Spring 2015. 

“Where Vanity Meets Volition: Technicity, Self-Monitoring, and the Comedy of Exasperation.” World Picture Journal. Summer, 2014.

 “Dying to Love: Gay Identity, Suicide, and Aesthetics in A Single Man.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Vol. 52, No 4. 2013. pp. 99-120.

 “Tossing Truths: Improvisation and the Performative Utterances of Nichols and May.” Critical Quarterly. Vol. 52, no. 3. 2010. pp. 23-46.

 BOOK CHAPTERS

“Headphones, Cinematic Listening, and the Frame of the Skull.” The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory. Ed. Kyle Stevens. Oxford University Press, 2022. - Winner: Best Essay in an Edited Collection, Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

“The Predicaments of Queer Stardom: Ben Wishaw, Ezra Miller, Zachary Quinto.” Stellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s. Ed. Steve Rybin. Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Elaine May: Subverting Machismo ‘Step by Tiny Step’.” The Other Hollywood Renaissance. Eds. R. Barton Palmer, Murray Pomerance, and Dominic Lennard, Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

“Michel Surreault in La cage aux folles.” Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances, Volume 2: International. Eds. Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens. Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

“A Star is Dead: Barrymore's Anti-Christian Metaperformance.” Hamlet Lives in Hollywood: John Barrymore and the Acting Tradition on Screen. Ed. Steve Rybin and Murray Pomerance. Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

“Queer Movements: Color, Performance, and Rhythm in John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye.” John Huston as Adaptor. Ed. Wesley King and Douglas McFarland. SUNY Press, 2017.

“Ford Does Isherwood.” The American Isherwood. Ed. James Berg and Chris Freeman. University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

“What a Difference A Gay Makes: Marriage in the Nineties Romantic Comedy.” Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema. Eds. Deborah Jermyn and Stacey Abbott. I.B. Tauris Press, 2009.

SHORT ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND OTHER SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS

Entries on Hannah Arendt and Béla Balázs. The Film-Philosophy Reader. Eds. Gregory Flaxman, Elena Oxman, and Rick Warner. (Forthcoming)

“Sneering at, or with, The White Lotus.” LA Review of Books. May 12, 2025. 

Invited contributor, “The Greatest Films of All Time,” Sight & Sound. Winter 2023.

“Beyond Identification: Daniel Morgan & Kyle Stevens Discuss Point of View and Camera Movement.” New Review of Film and Television Studies Close-Up Series. September 5, 2021.

“Hailing Who?” Docolague. November 1. 2019.  

“Bewitched by Olivia.” LA Review of Books. September 12, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/bewitched-by-olivia/

“Scorpio Rising.” “50 Queer Writers, 50 Favorite Queer Films.” Ed. Kyle Turner. Paste Magazine. June 26, 2019, 2019.

“Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Marielle Heller’s Queer Art of Transparency.” Adaptation. Vol. 12, No 1, 2019. pp. 58–61. - Highlighted by Criterion Collection as “the must-read of awards season” that year.

“Wet Humor.” Critical Inquiry Blog: In the Moment. September 17, 2018. 

Review of Annette Insdorf’s Opening Overtures, Critical Inquiry. July 25, 2018.

“Look at the Politics: On Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures.” The Journal of American History. Volume 104, Issue 1, 2017. p. 307–309.

“Welcome to Night Vale’s Cecil Baldwin on Finding the Queerness in His Character.” Interview with podcast voice actor Cecil Baldwin. Slate.com. August 30, 2017.

“Suffering without Meaning: Augustín Zarzosa’s Recuperation of the Melodrama.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. Vol. 37, Issue 3. Fall 2015.

“Thoughts on Writing ‘Dying to Love’ Then, Now.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Afterthoughts and Postscripts. Vol. 52, Issue 4. 2014.

“Review: Film: A Sound Art by Michel Chion.” Film Criticism. Winter. Vol. 34, 2012. p.81-84.

Entries on Carnal Knowledge, George Cukor, Katherine Hepburn, Elaine May, The Method, The Philadelphia Story, Barbra Streisand, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Phillip DiMare. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Press, 2011.

“Review: New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader.” Film Criticism. Fall/Winter, Vol. 31, 2006. p. 173-176.