Current PhD students

USC Cinema

    
Elizabeth Affuso
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BFA Cinema (NYU)
MA Critical Studies (USC)    
Advisor(s):
David James
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
film in the museum space, spectatorship, documentary, avant-garde  

    
Patty Ahn
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA English & Film Studies (UC Irvine)
MA Critical Studies (USC)    
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
television & reception studies, transnational popular visual economies within the U.S, queer and critical race studies, post-national and post-colonial theory

    
Cristiani Bilhalva
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA History (Pontifícia Universidade Católica)
MFA Screenwriting (USC) 
Advisor(s):
Curtis Marez
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
surrealism, dadaism, conceptualism, photography, Marxism, Zapatismo, indie cinema, avant-garde, international cinema, comedy, screenwriting, exile narratives, identity politics, gender studies, globalization & post-colonial history and economy (more than theory), subaltern studies, psychoanalytic theory

Elena Bonomo
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA English (Kenyon College)
MA English and Film Studies (Exeter)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
1980s Hollywood; children's media

    
Michael Dillon
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA East Asian Area Studies (USC)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
body genres, trans/nationalism, terrorism and bio-power, Japan

    
Kristen Fuhs
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BSSP Communication (Northwestern)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Michael Renov
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
Crime films, especially documentaries; Classic Hollywood

    
Ghia Godfree
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA Sociology (Harvard)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Priya Jaikumar
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
music videos, vampires, youth culture, prison TV & film, rugby

    
Julia Himberg
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA Film Studies (UC Santa Babara)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Committee:
Ellen Seiter (chair), Tara McPherson, Michael
Renov, Aniko Imre, Larry Gross (Annenberg)
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
TV studies and history, lesbian & gay studies, queer theory, gender studies, feminist theory, consumer culture, advertising, cultural studies

    
Brian Jacobson
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BS Computer Science (Appalachian State)
MS Comparative Media Studies (MIT)
Committee:
Anne Friedberg (chair), Akira Lippit, Vanessa Schwartz (History), Priya Jaikumar, Amy Murphy (Architecture)
Dissertation:
"Making Modern Space: Architecture, Technology, Early Cinema"    
Interests:
early/pre/proto cinema history and historiography; cinema and architecture; history and philosophy of technology; theories of space/place; visual studies

    
Chera Kee
Program:
PhD    
Education:
MA East Asian Studies (Harvard)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
documentary filmmaking; Chinese-language film; Zombies

    
David Lerner
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA English (Maryland)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Akira Lippit
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
subcultural studies, exploitation, reception, Baltimore

Annie Manion
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA East Asian Languages & Civilizations
(Chicago)
MA East Asian Area Studies (USC
Advisor(s):
Akira Lippit
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
Japanese cinema; anime

    
Ayana McNair
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BS International Business (San Jose State)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Committee:
TBA
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
black audience reception, ethnography and police brutality, state force

    
Taylor Nygaard
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA Rhetoric & Film Studies (UC Berkeley)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
children's and women's television and film, cultural studies, feminist and gender studies, documentary and ethnographic film, popular culture

    
JeCheol Park
Program:
PhD    
Education:
Advisor(s):
David James
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
East Asian cinema, trauma studies, and critical theory

Emily Perez
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA English Literature (Princeton)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:

    
Ken Provencher
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA Psychology and English (University of Massachusetts Lowell)
M.A. English (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
digital filmmaking and distribution; marketing and reception of foreign cinemas; contemporary Japanese cinema

    
Casey Riffel
Program:
PhD    
Education:

BA Interdisciplinary Humanities (Stanford)
MA Sociology (Stanford)
Advisor(s):
Akira Lippit
Dissertation:
"The Visual Rhetoric of Animality: A feral history of animation from Eadweard Muybridge to Jim Trainor"
Interests:
animation, animal studies, graphic arts, natural history, anthropomorphism and species

    
Jia Tan
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA History (USC)
MA Critical Studies (USC)
Advisor(s):
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
Documentary and experimental films, East Asian cinema, Contemporary Art (video art, animation, installation, etc), Globalization and post-colonial theory. Dissertation: the Question of Chinese Avant-garde in the era of globalization

    
Genevieve Yue
Program:
PhD    
Education:
BA Comparative Literature (Princeton)
Advisor(s):
Anne Friedberg
Dissertation:
     
Interests:
American avant-garde cinema, East Asian cinema, media history and visual culture