Emily Albu, associate professor of Classics, teaches Classics
102: Film and the Classical World. Her article on the 2000
blockbuster, Gladiator (“Gladiator at the Millennium”) will
appear in Celluloid Classics, a special issue of the journal
Arethusa. Classics 102: Film and the Classical World The
Classical World as portrayed in films. Viewings and discussions
of modern versions of ancient dramas, modern dramas set in the
Ancient Mediterranean world, and films imbued with classical
themes and allusions. Supplementary readings in ancient
literature and mythology. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Professor Xiaomei Chen loves to teach Chinese films that she grew
up with in the People’s Republic of China. Her Chinese 101 is a
popular course covering classics from the silent film era to the
twentieth-first century. Her research areas include modern
Chinese literature and culture, performance studies, and visual
cultural studies, which can be examined through the critical
analysis of films.
The annual International Short Festival (Festival International
du Court-Métrage: www.clermont-filmfest.com) each February in
Clermont-Ferrand, France, probably marks the beginning of my
active engagement with film. Between ‘81 and ‘87, while I was
living in France, I worked each year with the festival as their
translator, and in the process, learnt a tremendous about
film-making and the medium of film. Check out their website for
the 2008 festival! Fast forward to my work here at UC Davis, and
here I regularly teach courses on film in the French and
Francophone world.
Sergio de la Mora is Associate Professor in Chicana and Chicano
Studies at the University of California, Davis. His book,
Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican
Film (University of Texas Press, 2006) was a finalist for
the LAMBDA Literary Award in the category of Art and Culture. His
research and teaching interests include Latin American and
Chicano/Latino film, video and literature, third cinema, popular
culture, queer studies and cultural studies. His courses include
Mexican Cinema, Latin/o American Cinema, Representation in
Chicana/o Cinema.
Laura Grindstaff is an Associate Professor who came to UC Davis
10 years ago from the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches in
the areas of popular culture, cultural sociology, gender and
society, and field methods. Her research focuses broadly on
American popular culture and its role in constructing gender,
race, and class relations. Her first book, The Money Shot, is an
ethnographic account of daytime television talkshows.
Hall Margherita Heyer-Caput completed her education in Italy
(Laurea in Filosofia, 1980, University of Torino) and the United
States (Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1993, Harvard
University), and taught for several years at the University of
Bern, Switzerland, and various universities of the East Coast.
Her research and teaching areas cover the Italian literature of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention
to philosophical approaches to literature, Italian women writers,
literature and film, Italian and Italian American Cinema.
Robert Irwin, Professor of Spanish, specializes in Mexican and
Latin American cultural studies. He teaches courses on Mexican
and Latin American film from a historical and transnational
perspective. He is currently researching the reception of Mexican
“Golden Age” film in Latin America.
For many years Andy coordinated the Computer-Aided Instruction
Program for the Writing Program and the English Department, and
the Faculty Mentoring Faculty Program for the Center for
Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He teaches classes in
Writing in Education, American Literature, Literary Theory, and
Poetry; and in the past has taught The Beat Generation in Poetry
and Film, Creativity and Technology, Film Theory and Criticism,
and The Literature of Science Fiction.
Caren Kaplan is Professor of American Studies and affiliated
faculty in Cultural Studies and Science and Technology Studies.
She is also affiliated with the Humanities Innovation Lab, the
Mellon Research Initiative in Digital Cultures, and the IFHA on
Gamification.
Anna K. Kuhn’s research interests include women’s literature,
feminist theory, film studies and German cultural studies. She
teaches the introductory course in Women’s Studies and feminist
theory the senior seminar. courses on women’s literature and film
courses in the program. She also teaches courses in the
Comparative Literature program.
Michael J. Lazzara is Associate Professor of Latin American
Literature and Culture in the Spanish Department and affiliated
faculty with Film Studies and the Program in Cultural Studies.
His research focuses on contemporary Latin American artistic
projects from the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina), particularly
those dealing with issues of dictatorship, democratic transition
and traumatic memory.
Professor of Comparative Literature, and was founding co-director
of Film Studies at UC Davis. His film-related courses include
World Cinema, Introduction to Film, Chinese Cinema, and Hong Kong
Cinema. As author and editor of half a dozen books, he has
wide-ranging research interests: transnational cinema,
globalization studies, Chinese literature, narrative theory, and
comparative poetics.
English Professor Scott Simmon works at the intersection of film
scholarship, archiving, and access, with the goal of expanding
the availability of rare films.His best known publications are
the Treasures from American Film Archives DVD series, the third
volume of which, Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film,
1900-1934, was released in October 2007 (and called by Film
Comment, “a must-have package – a giant step in the true
movie-pilgrim’s progress”).Scott frequently teaches the overview
survey of international film history (English 161A & B); in
2007-08 he will teach “Film as N
Eric Smoodin is a Professor in the Programs in American Studies
and Film Studies. He received his PhD in Film Studies from UCLA
in 1984, and his research and teaching interests include American
and European film history from1895 to 1960, the American and
European film industries, the film audience, and the history of
Film Studies as an academic discipline.
Juliana Schiesari is the author of The Gendering of Melancholia:
Feminism, Psychoanalysis and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance
Literature, and co-editor of Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on
Gender and the Italian Renaissance. Her areas of research
include: feminist theory, psychoanalysis, Renaissance and early
modern literature, women’s literature and cultural studies. She
is currently writing a book on the politics of domestication of
women and animals.
