Notable Alumni

Darshana Mini, PhD 2020
Dissertation: Transnational Journeys of Malayalam Soft-Porn: Obscenity, Censorship and Mediations of Desire
Position: Assistant Professor of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Sophia Wager-Serrano, PhD 2019
Dissertation: Visual Media, Political Activism, and the Construction of Cultural Memory in the Mexican "Drug War"
Position: Assistant Curator, Academy of Motion Pictures Museum

Maria Zalewska, PhD 2019
Dissertation: #Holocaust: Rethinking the Relationship Between Spaces of Memory and Places of Commemoration in The Digital Age
Position: Executive Director, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation

Anirban Baishya, PhD 2018
Dissertation: Viral Selves: Cellphones, Selfies and the Self-fashioning Subject in Contemporary India
Position: Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University

Amy Murphy, PhD 2017
Dissertation: Spatial Truths and Temporal Fictions: Cinematic Representations of the American City 1938-1978
Position: Associate Professor, School of Architecture, University of Southern California

Rox Samer, PhD 2016
Dissertation: Receiving Feminisms: Media Cultures and Lesbian Potentiality in the 1970s
Position: Assistant Professor of Screen Studies, Clark University

Patricia Ahn, PhD 2015
Dissertation: Aftermarkets of Empire: South Korean Pop Music and the Global Logics of Race and Gender in the U.S. Media Industries
Position: Assistant Professor of Communication, University of California – San Diego

Feng-Mei Heberer, PhD 2015
Dissertation: Existential Surplus: Affect and Labor in Asian Diasporic Video Cultures
Position: Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies, New York University

Kate Fortmueller, PhD 2014
Dissertation: Part-Time Labor, Full-Time Dreams: Extras, Actors, and Hollywood’s On-Screen Talent
Position: Assistant Professor, University of Georgia, Grady College, Department of Entertainment and Media Studies

Eric Hoyt, PhD 2012
Dissertation: Hollywood Vault: The Business of Film Libraries, 1915-1960
Position: Kahl Family Professor of Media Production, Director of the Media History Digital Library, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Mary Jeanne Wilson, PhD 2012
Dissertation: "Like Sands Through the Hourglass:" Archiving and Repurposing the Daytime Soap Opera, Rescuing Television's Disposable Text
Position: Senior Research Director, Discovery Inc.

Kristen Fuhs, PhD 2011
Dissertation: The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth: Documentary Film and the Socio-Politics of Justice
Position: Associate Professor of Communication, Woodbury University

Brian Jacobson, PhD 2011
Dissertation: Studios Before the System: Architecture, Technology, and Early Cinema
Position: Professor of Visual Culture, Caltech

Suzanne Scott, PhD 2011
Dissertation: Revenge of the Fanboy: The Politics of Mainstreaming Geek Culture
Position: Associate Professor of Radio-TV-Film, University of Texas – Austin

James Cahill, PhD 2010
Dissertation: A True Hallucination: Jean Painlevé's Cinematic Wildlife, 1924-1946
Position: Associate Professor + Chair, Cinema Studies and French and Director of Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto

Julia Himberg, PhD 2010
Dissertation: Producing Lesbianism: Television, Niche Marketing, and Sexuality in the 21st Century
Position: Associate Professor and Director of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State University

Annabelle Honess Roe, PhD 2009
Dissertation: Animating Documentary
Position: Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Surrey, UK.

Ethan Thompson, PhD 2004
Dissertation: What, Me Subversive?: Television and Parody in Postwar America
Position: Professor of Media Arts, Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi

Cristina Venegas, PhD 2000
Dissertation: Digital Dilemma: New Media Relations in Contemporary Cuba
Position: Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California – Santa Barbara

Mary Celeste Kearney, PhD 1998
Dissertation: Girls, girls, girls: Gender and Generation in Discourses of Female Adolescence and Youth Culture
Position: Associate Professor of Film, Television and Theatre and Director of Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame

Mark J.P. Wolf, PhD 1995
Dissertation: Quantizing Perception: Art, Communication, and Cognition in the Digital Age
Position: Professor of Communication, Concordia University Wisconsin