EDUCATION
PhD, German Literature and Culture with Designated Emphasis in Film and Media Studies
University of California, Berkeley. 2015
Dissertation: “Moving History: The Cinematic Regime of Historicity in Weimar Germany”
Eugene Cota Robles Fellow
Visiting Fulbright Scholar in Film Studies, hosted by Gertrud Koch
Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany. 2012-2013
MA, German Literature and Culture
University of California, Berkeley. 2008
BA, History
Brigham Young University, Hawaii. 2007
Summa cum laude
Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Kappa Phi
EXPERIENCE
Associate Professor, 2024-present
Assistant Professor, 2018-2024
BYU–Hawaii, Laie, HI
Courses: Intro to Cultural Theory
Communication Theory and Methods
Political Communication
Internet and Society
Cinema and the City
Saints and Cinema
Historian and Editor, 2015-2018
Joseph Smith Papers, Salt Lake City, UT
Graduate Student Instructor, 2009-2015
University of California, Berkeley, CA
Courses: Cinema and the City
Media and the Body
History and Memory
Literature and Visual Culture
German 1-4
Teaching Assistant, 2006-2007
Brigham Young University-Hawaii
Courses: History 201
History 202
Research Assistant, 2005-2006
Brigham Young University-Hawaii
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism (University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
Documents Volume 13, Joseph Smith Papers, co-author/editor, (Church Historian’s Press, 2022)
Documents Volume 10, Joseph Smith Papers, co-author/editor, (Church Historian’s Press, 2020)
Documents Volume 8, Joseph Smith Papers, co-author/editor, (Church Historian’s Press, 2019)
Weimar Cinema, Embodiment, and Historicity: Cultural Memory and the Historical Films of Ernst Lubitsch. (Routledge, 2017) included in the “Focus on Film Studies” series
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography, Mormonism, and Noise,” Journal of Mormon History 48 (April 2022): 106-130.
“Discordant Images: Joseph Smith’s First Vision in the Lutheran Tradition of Ars Moriendi,” Journal of Mormon History 47 (October 2021): 122-134.
“Dark Temporalities: Technologies of Race and Lighting in Ernst Lubitsch’s Loves of Pharaoh (1922),” Film History: an International Journal (2021): 60-90.
“Panoramic Vision: Consolidating the Early Mormon Gaze,” Material Religion (December 2020).
“Mormonism and the Archaeology of Media,” Mormon Studies Review 5, (2018): 46-52.
“Re-Membering the Past: Historical Film and the Embodied Viewer,” Research in Film and History (November 2018).
“Circulating Specters: Mormon Reading Networks, Vision, and Optical Media,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, (June 2017): 527-548.
“Foreign Bodies: Border Control, Jewish Identity, and Der Student von Prag (1913),” Jewish Studies Quarterly Volume 21, Issue 3 (2014): 277-295.
“Pumping Up Masculinity: The Initial Intervention and Lasting Legacy of Hans and Franz,” Journal of Popular Culture Volume 45, Issue 2 (April 2012): 241–263.
Contributions in Edited Volumes
“Piety of Perspective: Bodies, Media, and Cinematic Experience in Latter-day Saint film, 1970-2020,” Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader, (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
“Saints and Cinema: Mormons, Moving Images, and Modernity,” full syllabus, Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, (centerforlatterdaysaintarts.com, 2019).
Egon Friedell, “Dubarry,” Weltbühne, in The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory 1907-1933, eds. Anton Kaes, Nicholas Baer, and Michael Cowan. (University of California Press, 2016 and www.thepromiseofcinema.com).
“Die ‘Erinnerung/Ein-Gliederung’ der Vergangenheit: Geschichtsfilm und der verleiblichte Zuschauer,” in Film und Geschichte: Produktion und Erfahrung von Geschichte durch Bewegtbild und Ton, ed. Pauleit, Winfried. (Berlin: Bertz + Fischer, 2015).
“Integrating the Best Books: Interwar Intellectualism and Extratextuality in Dorian, 1922.” Essay included in republication of Nephi Anderson’s novel, Dorian: A Peculiar Edition. (El Cerrito, CA: Peculiar Pages, 2015).
Reviews
Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image (University of Chicago Press, 2016) by Mary Campbell in Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 44, No. 1, (January 2018): 175-177.
A Communion of Shadows, (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) by Rachel McBride Lindsay in Reading Religion, readingreligion.com, (December 2017).
Fliehkraft: Gesellschaft in Bewegung-von Migranten und Touristen (Taschenbuch, 2006) by Tom Holert and Mark Terkessidis in TRANSIT: Vol. 3: No. 1, Article 70605, (2007).
GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND HONORS
Research Grant, Church History Department, 2023
Exemplary Faculty Award for Scholarship, BYU-Hawaii, 2022
Best Documentary Editing Award, Mormon History Association 2022, for Documents, Vol.10, Joseph Smith Papers, 2020.
Best Documentary Book Award, John Whitmer Historical Association, 2020 for Documents, Vol. 8, Joseph Smith Papers, 2019.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Middlebury College, 2015-2017 (declined)
Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award, 2013-2014
Fulbright Grant, hosted at Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, 2012-2013
Dean’s Fellowship, UC-Berkeley, 2012-2013
UC Berkeley Summer Grant, 2008, 2009, 2010
Eugene Cota Robles graduate fellowship, 2007-2009
Lance D. Chase award, BYU-Hawaii, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007
Full tuition scholarship for merit, BYU-Hawaii History department, 2006-2007
Research Grant, BYU-Hawaii, 2005-2006
Kamehameha Schools Bernice Pau’ahi scholarship, 2004-2008
PRESENTATIONS
Research Showcase: Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism, LDS Media Studies Symposium, October 2023, Las Vegas, NV.
“Full-Bodied Faith: Vision and Deception in the Doctrine and Covenants,” Mormon History Association, June 2023, Rochester, NY.
“Unity in Fractured Memory: BYU-Hawaii’s David O. McKay Mosaic and the Politics of Remediation,” Mormon History Association, June 2022, Logan, UT.
“Piety of Perspective: Bodies, Media, and Experience in Latter-day Saint Cinema, 1970-2020,” Keynote address, BYU-H Undergraduate Research Conference, March 2022, Laie, HI.
“Saints and Cinema: Historical Waves of Mormon Moving Images,” Latter-day Saint Cinema Conference, October 2021, Provo, UT. (by invitation)
“Sensitive Machines: Mormon Women, Writing Technologies, and Creation,” Faculty Advisory Committee Forum, April 2021, Laie, HI.
“Sensitive Machines: Mormon Women, Writing Technologies, and Creation,” Association for Mormon Letters, UC-Berkeley Institute, March 2019, Berkeley, CA.
“Dark Temporalities: Historicizing Lighting and Race in Weimar Cinema,” O. Meredith Wilson History Symposium, University of Utah, October 2018, Salt Lake City, UT. (by invitation)
“Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography and Mormonism,” Faculty Advisory Committee Forum, November 2018, Laie, HI.
“Developing the Dead: Spirit Photography’s Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Mormonism,” Mormon History Association, June 2018, Boise, ID.
“The Material and Immaterial Past of Joseph Smith,” Eugene England Memorial Lecture Series, July 2017, Berkeley, CA. (by invitation)
“Panoramic Vision: Mediating Mormon Revelatory Experience,” American Society of Church History, April 2017, Berkeley, CA.
"Circulating Specters: Regulating Mormon Vision in the Face of Print and Optical Media," Mormon Media Studies Symposium, November 2016, Laie, Hawaii.
"Dr. Hirschell and Mr. Hyde: Restorationism, Descendancy, and Orson Hyde's Shifting Jewish Identity," Mormon History Association, June 2016, Snowbird, Utah.
“Framing Conversion: Mahlzeiten (1965) and the Mormons,” Association for Mormon Letters, March 2016, Laie, Hawaii.
“Re-Membering the Past: Historical Film and the Embodied Viewer” Bremen International Film Symposium, “Film and History,” May 2014, Bremen, Germany. (by invitation)
“History as Sensual Experience: Lubitsch’s Madam Dubarry (1919)” Third Annual London Film and Media Conference, “Pleasure of the Spectacle,” June 2013, London, England.
“Living History: Ernst Lubitsch’s Passion and Academic Historiography,” The Promise and Threat of Cinema Conference, December 2009, UC-Berkeley.
SERVICE
Conference organizer, Oxford Anthology of Mormon Art Conference, March 2022, UMOCA, Salt Lake City, UT
Faculty Advisory Council, 2021-present
Scholarship Committee, Communication and Visual Arts programs, 2020-present
International Advisory Board, 2018-present
Research in Film and History
Reviewer/Referee, 2010-present
Journal of American Academy of Religion, Material Religion, Journal of Mormon History, Transit
Film Forum, Integrated Humanities, 2018-present
Brigham Young University, Hawaii
Chair of German Film Club, 2008-2011
University of California, Berkeley, CA
Librarian, 2008-2009
German Department Research Library
University of California, Berkeley, CA
MEMBERSHIPS
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Mormon History Association
German Studies Association
Popular Culture Association
LANGUAGES
German: fluent
Yiddish: advanced reading comprehension
Middle High German: advanced reading comprehension
Biblical and Modern Hebrew: intermediate reading comprehension
CV Last Revised 6/6/2024