Curriculum Vita

Carol Donelan teaches courses in Cinema Studies, including Film History I, Film Theory and Criticism, Moviegoing and Film Exhibition, American Film History, Film Noir, The Melodramatic Imagination, and Italian Neorealism & Global Cinema.  Her research interests include the cultural history of moviegoing and film exhibition in small towns and other understudied locales, the production, distribution and exhibition of noncommercial films and their influence on mainstream entertainment cinema, and melodrama as a mode of visual storytelling.  She recently co-curated an exhibition on "Modernizing Melodrama" in the Carleton Art Gallery. 

Shawn VanCour, a specialist in Media & Cultural Studies, teaches courses on the History of Broadcasting, Television Criticism, Media Theory, Sound History and Sound Studies, History and Theory of Emerging Media, and Creativity and Innovation in Mass Media. He has published work on radio history and early 20th century taste cultures in Media, Culture and Society, and has co-authored a chapter on contemporary media historiography in NBC: America's Network (University of California, 2007). His dissertation, "The Sounds of Radio: Aesthetic Formations of 1920s American Broadcasting," received the 2009 outstanding dissertation award from the Broadcast Education Association.

Paul is Director of the CAMS Media Lab and teaches a variety of classes in media production, including Digital Foundations and Nonfiction Video.  He is the head of Northfield's community television station [NTV] and has served as the mayor of Northfield.

Marla Erickson provides administrative support to the faculty, manages student workers, and generally oversees the administrative workings of the CAMS department.  She is famous for her award-winning chocolate chip cookies.

Vern is a much-admired Professor of English with a passion for film. In the mid-'70s he instituted the first cinema class at Carleton and helped organize the Carleton Film Society. In recent years nearly half the courses he taught were on film history and aesthetics, and many generations of students remember fondly his wonderful auteur classes in Hitchcock, Bergman, Antonioni, Renoir and Capra, among others. Vern taught his last class for the Department in 2004, but is still happy to discuss film.  He is sometimes available for consultations in the coffee shop downtown.

Barbara Allen 's Media and Politics class looks at popular representations of governance in film and television (e.g. films like The Manchurian Candidate and All the President's Men) as well as the uses of media by government; it also looks specifically at television news coverage of elections as well as candidate communications (especially television and radio advertising) using mass media. Another course, Politics and Political History in Film, examines films representing politics and historical events in fiction and non-fiction genres for entertainment and education.

Jorge Brioso teaches a course on Contemporary Spanish Film for CAMS. He is interested in the relationship between the rise of the city and its representation in cinematographic images. He is currently researching the representation of the "beloved" in Pedro Almodovar's films and classic poetry.

Angela Curran, a specialist in cognitive film theory, teaches courses on Film and Philosophy as well as Film and the Emotions.  Her recent publications include a co-edited anthology, Philosophy of Film: Introductory Text and Readings, and entries for The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Film.

Diane Nemec Ignashev teaches courses such as Film History II, European Women Filmmakers, and Russian and Soviet Film. Her research interests include the history of Russian Cinema, Russian-Soviet Film Theory, film semiotics (esp. Tartu School), Gender and Cinema, and the histories and theories of European Cinema. Diane has published extensively on Russian and Eastern European Film Studies. Currently she is working on an article titled "Who Sank/The/Russian Ark/ or How Bad Subtitles Unmake Good Films."

Susan Jaret McKinstry, Helen F. Lewis Professor of English, teaches a cognate course in Narrative Theory for Cinema & Media Studies, in addition to courses on Austen, the Victorian novel, Victorian poetry and painting, literary theory and creative writing for the English department. Her current research explores poetry and painting, book illustration, and the book as object in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Baird Jarman teaches a course in The History of Photography for the Cinema and Media Studies Department. His dissertation investigated the chivalric iconography of The Quest of the Holy Grail murals in the Boston Public Library, and he continues to research chivalric imagery in American popular culture of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, for instance in the films of D. W. Griffith. He has guest lectured on American cinema of the silent era in the film history survey, has served as a judge for DVD Fest, and serves on the college's Committee on Visuality.  He is a huge fan of Buster Keaton.

Cherif Keita teaches courses on the Francophone Literature and Films of Africa and the Caribbean as well as advanced languages courses. A native of Mali, Mr. Keïta has published books and articles on both social and literary problems in contemporary Africa. His special interests include the novel and social evolution in Mali, Oral tradition, and the relationship between music, literature and culture in Africa. He is the author of Massa Makan Diabaté (L'Harmattan, 1995) and Salif Keita: L'oiseau sur le fromager (Le figuier, 2001). He has completed two documentary films: "Oberlin-Inanda: In Search of John L. Dube", about the life of the first President of the African National Congress in South Africa and the US at the end of the 19th century, and "Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa," about how a man from Northfield helped change the world, was forgotten, and rediscovered.  Mr Keïta is the Director of French and Francophone Studies at Carleton and leads a Carleton Francophone off-campus studies program to Mali every other year.

Sigi Leonhard, a poet and novelist, also teaches courses in German and European film, including "Studies in German Cinema: Current Issues in Contemporary Film" and, with Professor Dana Strand, a comparative course in French and German Cinema.  In Studies in German Cinema, discussions focus on issues such as the Third Reich and its impact on contemporary Germany (Fassbinder, Syberberg, Sanders-Brahms), the American dream in German culture (Wenders, Herzog), minorities in Germany (Fassbinder, Ottinger), literature into film (Schlöndorff), and the role of women (Fassbinder, Sanders-Brahms, Ottinger, Dörrie). 

Ron Rodman teaches courses on Sound and Music in Film and Television for CAMS.  He has contributed articles on film analysis  and television music to the College Music Symposium, Journal of Music Theory, and Indiana Theory Review, as well as to the books Music and Cinema, The Continuum Guide to Media, and Changing Tunes.

Linda Rossi teaches courses on photochemical and digital photography for CAMS. Her work is primarily in large-scale photo installation including video and sculpture to illuminate both historical and current issues. She has received numerous major grants and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran.  Her work can be viewed in the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Dana Strand, professor of French, team teaches a comparative course on French and German Cinema with Sigi Leonhard.  She also offers a survey course on French film and a course entitled Cinema and Society that uses film as a window onto French culture. Having published articles on the films of Claire Denis and on the uses of history in film, she is currently working on a book of essays on place and identity in contemporary French literature and film.

Noboru Tomonari teaches Japanese Cinema in Cinema & Media Studies. He is preparing a course on Japanese anime as well as director studies of Kurosawa and Ozu.  Professor Tomonari is researching the representation of minorities in Japanese films and has written papers on zainichi (resident Koreans in Japan) in cinema. He is currently working on film adaptations of novels by Nakagami Kenji, who was born a burakumin, Japan's underclass that still receives much discrimination. With his Japanese language students, he is creating English subtitles for the documentary Zainichi: The Koreans in Postwar Japan.

Kai Kerklotz, Visiting Assistant Professor of German, teaches a course on German Film After World War II for CAMS.  This course introduces postwar German cinema, emphasizing films in their socio-historical contexts while also providing an introduction to theoretical approaches and analytical tools for film analysis. Topics include: Remembering the Holocaust and WWII; terrorism; socialism and utopia; Berlin films and reunification; as well as race and migration.

Hong Zeng teaches Chinese Cinema for CAMS as well as cognate courses in Chinese Literature and Film in Translation.  The course in Chinese Cinema focuses on Chinese films from the 1920s to the present, including masterpieces produced by mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and overseas Chinese film directors.  Films are studied in terms of the innovation of film techniques, relationship to literature, MTV, documentary, painting, world cinema, and historical and cultural backgrounds.