Bio
I am Professor of Film and Screen Studies in the Department of English at Syracuse University. Before joining the faculty in 2015, I received a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from Indiana University Bloomington, where I completed a program of study in film and media. My research and teaching focus on the histories of popular film and media from the United States, with an emphasis on Hollywood cinema. I have also served as Department Chair (2024-2026) and Director of Undergraduate Studies (2021-2023).
Current Research
I am finishing a book under contract with Wayne State University Press about the Universal Classic Monsters, among whom include Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man. Exploring the impact of film circulation and paratextual material on the creation of a canon, this project undertakes a kind of monster-hunt across time: from the studio period, when the serialization of horror films made Universal Pictures synonymous with the genre, to the franchise era, when the Universal monsters gained afterlives as brand ambassadors for a media conglomerate. The book is tentatively titled Monsters in the Movie Lab: Universal Pictures and Classic Hollywood Horror.