Presentations

The Bisexual (Desiree Akhavan, 2018)

Invited Talks

“Mumblecore’s Second Act: Millennial Indie Moviemaking’s Migration to Television.” Emerson Los Angeles, March 22, 2023.

“Let’s Talk about Representation.” Oscar Talk, Emerson Los Angeles, March 9, 2023.

“Full Frontal Feminism: Sex Scenes in Jane Campion’s Turn of the Millennium Trilogy.” Innsbruck Gender Lectures, Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Research Innsbruck, University of Innsbruck, June 28, 2022. Listen on Cultural Broadcasting Archive (Freirad)

“The Future of Roe v. Wade.” Invited Panelist. Department of American Studies, University of Innsbruck, June 13, 2022.

“American Bad Feminists on Page, Stage, and Screen.” Keynote Lecture. Austria’s Young Americanists (AYA) Spring Colloquium, Department of American Studies, University of Innsbruck, May 6, 2022.

“After “Happily Ever After”: Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age.” Invited Speaker. Reel Talks, Bryant Park Reading Room, July 19, 2021; SCMS Comedy and Humor Studies SIG Reading Group, May 10, 2021.

“Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media.” Invited Speaker. Boston Cinema/Media Seminar, April 5, 2021. View the discussion here.

“Looking for Mr. Right(-Click): Coupling Cultures Today,” Invited Panelist. Screening discussion, “Imagining ‘We’ in the Age of ‘I’: Romance and Social Bonding in Contemporary Culture,” Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, UK, September 29, 2018.

“Post-theatrical Romcom and Queer Women’s Web Series.” Plenary Panelist. Her Public Screening and Panel Discussion, Imagining ‘We’ in the Age of ‘I’ Symposium, University of Warwick, September 28, 2018.

“Transforming the ‘Male Glance’ in Academic Publishing.” Roundtable Participant. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Seattle, March 16, 2019.

“New Television: The Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre.” Invited Respondent. Book discussion with author Martin Shuster, Goucher College, April 11, 2018.

“After the Death of Cinema: Queer Spaces & Sexualities in 21st Century Screen Media.” Invited Lecturer. Gender Studies Graduate Student Association Colloquium Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington, February 28, 2014.

“‘Women Contained’: Figuring Feminism in the Films of Todd Haynes.” Invited Respondent. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. Seattle, March 22, 2014.

“Counterpublics,” plenary panelist with Henry Jenkins, Cristobal Garcia, and Eric Gordon. Media in Transition 8 Conference, Public Media, Private Media, MIT, May 4, 2013.

“Before and After AfterEllen: On-line Queer Media Communities as Critical Counterpublics.” Invited Panelist. Media in Transition 8 Conference, Public Media, Private Media, MIT, May 4, 2013; Mediating Public Spheres Symposium, Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, April 5, 2013. Video.

“Mumblecore: The Movement that Didn’t Roar.” Invited Speaker. MassMoCA in collaboration with Nerdnite NYC/Nerdnite Boston, October 13, 2012; Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College, April 2, 2012; NerdNite Boston, August 29, 2011. MSN News covers NerdNite in Top nerdy cities in America feature.

“The B Word: Bisexual (In)visibility In and Out of Hollywood.” Invited Speaker. Fellows’ Lecture Series, Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College, February 26, 2009.

“Sexual/Digital Revolution: Women Directors, Alternative Relationships, and 21st Century Independent Filmmaking.” Invited Speaker. Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, Tufts University, March 23, 2013. Panel: Critical Representations of Marriage; Public Colloquium: New Media in Feminist Scholarship, Teaching, and Activism, Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, October 19, 2012.

“Of Cowboys & Cocksmen: Buddy Films and the Tragicomedy of (Re)Marriage Equality.” Invited Speaker.
UCLA Center for the Study of Women Speaker Series, May 22, 2007.
Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference. UCLA, October 20, 2007.

Humpday (Lynn Shelton, 2009)

Conference Presentations

Bi Now: Bisexuality in Contemporary Media/Studies. Panel Chair, Respondent. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Denver, April 14, 2023.

“Reanimating Romcom: Escaping Embodied Partners(hip) en Route to Emancipation from Neoliberal Subjectivity.” Console-ing Passions, University of Central Florida, June 24, 2022.

“Living in the Gray Area: Bisexual Re-significations in Desiree Akhavan’s The Bisexual.” Co-Chair, Panel: Queer Re-significations: Imagining the Past in Contemporary Queer Media. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, March 17, 2021 (carried over from 2020).

“Love Crimes: Incest, Murder, and Queer(ing) Romcom.” Chair, Panel: Radical Romantic Comedy. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Toronto, March 16, 2018.

“(Sex) Work or Pleasure?: Elective Sex Work Films by Contemporary Women Filmmakers.” Panel: Making Sex Work: Toward a Resistant Pornographic Imagination. National Women’s Studies Association, Baltimore, November 17, 2017.

“Talking Back to Papa: Feminist Rewritings of ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’” Panel: Recent Critical work on Film and Television Adaptations of Literary Narratives.  American Literature Association, Boston, May 25, 2017.

“Good Sex, ‘Bad Feminists,’ and Emergent Female Provocauteurs.” Chair, Panel: Still Taboo: Sexual Provocation on 21st Century Screens. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago, March 25, 2017.

“Queering the Homme Fatal: Re-reading the Erotic Thriller through The New Girlfriend and Stranger by the Lake.” Co-Chair (with Maya Montañez Smukler), Panel: Bringing Sexy Back: Rebooting the Erotic Thriller. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta, April 1, 2016.

“Captive Viewers: Learning In/humanity through Film in Dogtooth and The Wolfpack.” Screen, University of Glasgow, June 27, 2015.

“‘Just because I’m a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m evolved’: ‘Post-Queer’ Politics of Representation in Recent LGBT Web Series.” Chair: Ben Aslinger (Bentley University). Console-ing Passions, Dublin, June 20, 2015.

“Looking for the Penis: Representing Gay Male Sex and Nudity in HBO’s Looking.” Chair, Panel: Full-frontal TV: Male Nudity and Sex in Cable Television Drama. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Montreal, March 27, 2015.

La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel, 2008)

“Doing Time: Queer Temporalities and Orange Is the New Black.” Panel: Still Here. Still Queer?: Getting Used to Gay TV in the 21st Century. Chair: Julia Himberg (Arizona State University). Console-ing Passions, University of Missouri, April 10, 2014.

“Linklater’s Before Trilogy and the Evolution of U.S. Indie Cinema.” Panel: Time and the Cinema of Richard Linklater. Chair: Peter Lurie (University of Richmond). Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, March 20, 2014.

“Girlhood, Interrupted: Hayley Mills, Jodie Foster, and (Post-­)Disney Delinquency.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago, March 9, 2013. Chair, Panel: “Girls for Sale: The (Sexual) Commodification of Girl Stars in U.S. Cinema.” Respondent: Diane Negra (University College Dublin)

The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)

“Treating Middle-Aged Men Seriously: Minimalism and Masculinity in In Treatment and Louie.” Co-Chair (with Maya Montañez Smukler), Panel: Television’s Mid-life Crisis. Console-ing Passions, Suffolk University, July 19-21, 2012.

“Bisexuality and Beyond: Confronting Compulsory Monosexuality in Post-L Word Television Drama.” What Is Television? Conference, Oregon State University, March 3, 2012; On Television. Yale University, February 4, 2012.

“A Cinema of Recession: Micro-budgeting, Micro-drama, and the ‘Mumblecore’ Movement.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, New Orleans, March 13, 2011. Co-Chair (with David Andrews), Panel: The Art of the Sell: 21st Century Specialty Cinema and the U.S. Market.

“Histories of Violence: The Political Unconscious of 1970s Film Noir.”
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Los Angeles, March 20, 2010.
Co-Chair (with Maya Montañez Smukler), Panel: New Hollywood Redux: Revisiting 1970s American Cinema. Respondent: Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam)

“The Future of the Past: Marking Time in 1970s (Cine)philia.”
Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, December 29, 2009.
Chair: Kara Keeling (University of Southern California)

“Postfeminist Performance and the ‘Reality’ of Romance in A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.” Northeast Modern Language Association, Boston, March 1, 2009.
Seminar: Postfeminism and the Future(s) of Feminist Film and Media Studies
Chair: Marcelline Block (Princeton University)
Respondent: Stéphanie Genz (Edge Hill University)

(Re)Constructing Bisexual Spaces. (Panel Co-Chair)
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Philadelphia, March 9, 2008. Respondent: Alexander Doty (Indiana University).

“Cockswinging & Ballbusting: Rescue Me’s Post-9/11 Resurrection of American Heteromasculinity.” Console-ing Passions Conference. University of California, Santa Barbara, April 24, 2008; Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Philadelphia, March 8, 2008.

Looking (HBO, 2014-2015)

“Power Play: Allegories of Class Privilege in Bi-sexploitation Film.”
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. Chicago, March 10, 2007.

“The ‘Other’ Dreamgirl: Female Bisexuality as the Dark Secret of Mulholland Drive.”
UCLA Thinking Gender Conference. Los Angeles, March 3, 2006.

“Having It Both Ways: Female Bisexuality, Bi-Textuality & Contemporary Cinema.”
Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference. UCLA, November 19, 2005.
Beyond Gender Conference. Brown University, May 13, 2005.

“(Only) In Her Dreams: Performing Gender and Sexuality in Mulholland Drive.”
Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference. UCLA, October 16, 2004.

“Mulholland Drive: The Royal Road to the Lynchian Unconscious.”
Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference. UCLA, November 15, 2003.
Cultural Studies Association Conference. Northeastern University, May 9, 2004.

“The Girl who Never Grew Up: Mary Pickford’s Frustrated Femininity.”
Teenage Cinema: Cinemas in Transition 1908-1919 Conference. University of Chicago, April 5, 2003.

Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2009)

Guest Lectures

“From The Women to Barbie: How Hollywood Uses Product Placement to Sell Products and Itself.” Entertainment Marketing. Instructor: Kristin Lieb. Emerson College, September 9, 2021; September 13, 2023.

“Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art,” Researching the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Instructor: Maya Montañez Smukler. UCLA, February 9, 2023.

“Queer(ing) Media,” Visual & Media Studies Foundations Colloquium. Instructor: Jane Shattuc. Emerson College, November 29, 2022.

“Making Cinephilia Work,” Film as Cultural Practice. Instructor: Christian Quendler. University of Innsbruck, May 12, 2022.

“Academic Publishing,” CGI Center Interdisciplinary Gender Research Innsbruck, University of Innsbruck, April 27, 2022.

“Francophone Women Directors,” Introduction to Francophone Cinema. Instructor: Kathryn St. Ours. Goucher College, April 20, 2018.

“Sitcom Sexuality and Transparent,” Culture and the Sitcom. Instructor: Mary Dalton. Wake Forest University, recorded December 16, 2015.

“The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television,” U.S. LGBTQ History. Instructor: Colin Johnson. Indiana University, April 23, 2014; Gender, Sexuality, and the American Media Industries. Instructors: Miranda Banks and Kristin Lieb. Emerson College, Nov. 26, 2013.

Paris Was a Woman (Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss, 1996), Schlesinger Library on the History of Women, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, December 7, 2011.

“Mumblecore Cinema,” Comedy on Screen. Instructor: Maya Montañez Smukler. The New School (New York), Nov. 7-11, 2011.

“Funny Ha Ha and Mumblecore,” Film Now! An Introduction to the Cinematic Experience. Instructor: Vernon Shetley. Wellesley College, April 12, 2011.

Moderated Events

Post-screening Q&A with filmmaker Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, 2014), Billy Wilder Theater, UCLA Film & Television Archive, February 18, 2023

Panel Chair, International Conference: Flyover Fictions, Department of American Studies, University of Innsbruck, Austria, May 27, 2022.

Post-screening Q&A with filmmaker Assel Aushakimova (Welcome to the USA, 2019), kinovi[sie]on at Leokino, March 8, 2022.

“Feminist Filmmaking. A Revolutionary Moment.” Women’s Liberation Movement Conference. Boston University, March 28, 2014.

Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, 2007)