Cinema, Latin American cinema, film journals, film genres, auteurs/directors, short films
Additional Information:
Jeffrey Middents studies and teaches film and world literature, specifically focusing on Latin American narratives from the 1960s to the 1980s, and serves as the advisor to the cinema studies minor. His film-oriented courses cover a wide range of concepts, including national cinemas, genre, the auteur, stardom, film criticism, and short film. His book, Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru (UPNE, 2009), investigates the historical place of cultural writing within a national discourse by tracing how Peruvian cinema was shaped by local film criticism. Middents has also published essays on a variety of other topics, including documentary aesthetics in the work of Chilean filmmaker Particio Guzmán, Peruvian director Luis Llosa’s films made under producer Roger Corman, the theoretical perspective espoused by Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, and the racial complexities of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His current project examines transnational cinema and the work of Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón.
Foreign Language Fluency:
Spanish
Academic Credentials:
BA, Dartmouth College; PhD, University of Michigan