Dr. Tim PalmerAssociate Professor
Contact Information
King Hall 102B
Phone: 910-962-7475
E-mail: palmert@uncw.edu
Education
Ph.D. in Communication Arts (Film Program), 2003
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Dissertation: Tales of the Underworld: Jean-Pierre Melville and 1950s French Cinema
M.A. For Research in Film and Television Studies, 1997
Warwick University, England
Graduated with Distinction
B.A. (Hons.) in Film and Literature, 1996
Warwick University, England
Professional Experience
Associate Professor of Film Studies 2008-
Assistant Professor of Film Studies 2003 - 2008
Department of Film Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2003-
Classes taught include: |
Introduction to French Cinema Japanese Cinema New Wave Cinemas Perspectives in World Cinema Minimalist Cinema The French New Wave |
Current Research
My major project is Brutal Intimacy, a book-length survey of contemporary French cinema. Its case studies analyze: the new French feminine cinema (Siegrid Alnoy, Marina de Van, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, etc.); anti-narrative and/or experimental practices within a burgeoning French avant garde; the intersections between mainstream and arthouse filmmaking; representations of gender identity, the workplace, and the (filmed) body; the rise of a cinéma rural; and genre proliferation within recent Franco-American commercial cross-overs. This book is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press, 2010.
Recently, I co-founded and became co-editor of a new peer reviewed journal, Film Matters, published by Intellect Press. This is a refereed undergraduate journal, exploring issues of film criticism and film history, building from the department's seminar on publishing the film journal, and from our ongoing collaboration with Intellect.
I am also co-editing a new scholarly collection, Directory of World Cinema: France, to be published in early 2011 by Intellect. While traditionally the history of French cinema has been told in terms of great directors and select artistic movements, this new edited volume presents an alternative to this standard story -- by unearthing lost or neglected films, broadening the canon, and offering original approaches to acknowledged classics. Its case studies include: animation; women's cinema; avant-gardes and counter cinemas; new waves and young cinemas; Francophone and immigrant filmmaking; documentary and realism; blockbusters and super-productions; the crime film/policier; comedies; classics revisited.
Other works-in-progress include a revisionist history of the Hollywood Blacklist, using unpublished archival materials to consider the political roles of the Screen Writers’ Guild, the Hollywood trade press, and the West Coast screenwriting community within the HUAC enquiry. I am also researching an account of contemporary minimalist cinema, exploring its political and aesthetic strategies through oppositional films produced in countries such as Iran, Japan, Thailand, France, and Scandinavia.
Publications: Books
Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Forthcoming, Wesleyan University Press, 2010.
Directory of World Cinema: France. Forthcoming, Intellect Press, 2011. Co-editor with Charlie Michael.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
"Don't Look Back: An Interview with Marina de Van." Forthcoming in The French Review, April 2010.
"Contemporary French Feminine Cinema and Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence." Forthcoming in The French Review, December 2009.
"The Rules of the World: Japanese Eco-Cinema and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.” In Paula Willoquet-Maricondi (ed.), Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film (Forthcoming, University of Virginia Press, 2010).
“Star, Interrupted: The Reinvention of James Stewart.” In Kylo-Patrick Hart (ed.), Film and Television Stardom (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008), pp. 43-57.
“Pop-Art French Cinema and Valeria Bruni-Tedesci’s Il est plus facile pour un chameau…” In Isabelle Vanderschelden and Darren Waldron (eds.), France at the Flicks: Trends in Contemporary French Cinema (London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), pp. 89-102.
“Paris, City of Shadows: French Crime Cinema Before the New Wave.” New Review of Film and Television Studies, 6:2, August 2008:213-231.
“An Amateur of Quality: Postwar French Cinema and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le silence de la mer.” Journal of Film and Video 59:4, pp. 3-19. Article here
“Under Your Skin: Marina de Van and the Contemporary French cinéma du corps.” Studies in French Cinema 6:3, Fall 2006, pp. 171-181. Article here
“Style and Sensation in the Contemporary French Cinema of the Body.” Journal of Film and Video 58:3, Fall 2006, pp. 22-32. Article here
“Side of the Angels: Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood Trade Press, and the Blacklist.” Cinema Journal 44:4, Summer 2005, pp. 57-74. Article here
“Jean-Pierre Melville and 1970s French Film Style.” Studies in French Cinema 2:3, Spring 2003. Article here
“From Extra to Everyman: The Expressive Dialectic of Director and Actor in the Films of James Stewart and Frank Capra.” In Laura Vichi (ed.), The Visible Man: Film Acting From Early Cinema To The Threshold Of Modern Cinema, (Udine, Italy: University of Udine Press, 2002), pp. 179-187
Other Publications: Book Chapters, Critical Essays, Reviews
“Les Enfants terribles: An Interview with Françoise Marie.” In Film International 34, Fall 2008, pp. 94-98. With Liza Palmer.
“La Vie en Richmond: Report of the 2008 VCU French Film Festival.” In Film International 33, Summer 2008. p. 90-94. With Liza Palmer.
“Army of Shadows.” Film International 28, Fall 2007, p. 120-123.
“Ugetsu.” Film International 19, Spring 2006, pp. 78-80.
“Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï.” In Phil Powrie (ed.), The Cinema of France (London: Wallflower Press, 2006), pp. 122-131.
“Kiss Me Deadly: Two Films by Seijun Suzuki.” Film International 17, Fall 2005, pp. 61-63.
“Throne of Blood: Kurosawa, East and West.” Film International 14, Summer 2005, pp. 54-55.
“Pépé le moko.” Film International 7, Summer 2004, pp. 62-63.
“Robert Bresson and Les Dames du bois du Boulogne.” Film International 4, Spring 2003, pp. 47.
“Two by Jean-Luc Godard.” Film International 2, March 2003, pp. 56.
“Exotic Aesthetics: Long Take Style and Staging in the Films of Mizoguchi and von Sternberg.” Filmhäftet 122: 4, July 2002, pp. 1-6. Article here
“Jean-Luc Godard: Le Petit Soldat.” Senses of Cinema 19, March/April 2002.
Book Review: The Invisible Seen in French Cinema Before 1917 by Marina Dahlquist. Filmhäftet 122:4, September 2002.
“Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound.” Filmhäftet 123:2, September 2002.
Book Review: Do The Right Thing by Ed Guerrero. Filmhäftet 120:2, April 2002.
University Service and Professional Activities
2007- Associate Chair of the Film Studies Department, University of North Carolina Wilmington.
2007- Faculty Senator for Film Studies.
2007- Member, Film Studies Department’s Cultural Events Committee
2006 Co-organizer and principal critical studies instructor of the inaugural UNCW Summer Cinema Academy, an intensive residential introductory film study course for high school students.
2006-7 Chair, Film Studies Department’s Cultural Events Committee.
2006- Member, Film Studies Curriculum Committee.
2006- Member, UNCW Union Theater Programming committee, organizing and promoting 35mm screenings, film series, and co-ordinating film culture on-campus.
2005-6 Member, two job search committees in the Department of Film Studies.
2005-6 Chair, Film Studies Department’s Student Alumni and Student Relations committee.
2005 Academic reader for the University of Kentucky Press.
2004-5 Chair, Film Studies Department’s Cultural Events committee.
2004 Academic advisor to Wallflower Press, London, England.
2004-5 Member, two job search committees in the Department of Film Studies.
2003-5 Member, Film Studies Department’s Policies committee, developing and implementing departmental operating procedures.
2003- Co-organizer and co-founder of Cinema Nouveau, Wilmington’s festival of new French film, funded by competitive grants awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. The first series, presenting the regional premieres of first-time French directors, was held on the UNCW campus, February, 2004. The second festival took place October–November, 2004; the third in October-November, 2005; the fourth October-November 2006. The fifth event will be held in November 2007.
2003-4 Programming advisor, as part of the Organizing Committee of the Cucalorus Film Festival, Wilmington, NC.
2003-5 Member, Film Studies Cultural Events committee.
2003-4 Member, job search committee in the UNCW Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.
2001- Contributor and reviewer for the Film International journal.
1998 Member, Editorial Board of The Velvet Light Trap film journal, reviewing
-2000 article submissions, drafting paper calls, and supervising editorial policies.
Honors and Awards
2007 Faculty Research Development award given by the UNCW Center for Faculty Leadership.
2006 Charles L. Cahill Grant awarded by the UNCW for archival research on HUAC and the Blacklist in the Wisconsin Centre for Film and Theater Research, Madison, Wisconsin.
2005 Summer Research Initiative awarded by the UNCW, for scholarly and archival research in Paris, France, June-July, 2004.
2004 Charles L. Cahill Grant awarded by the UNCW for archival research in contemporary French cinema in Paris, France.
2003 Curriculum Development Grant awarded by the UNCW, to devise new courses in Japanese cinema and French cinema.
2002 Ruth McCarty Travel Award given twice by the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2002 Ruth McCarty Dissertation Award from the Department of Communication Arts, UW.
2001 Henry Vilas Travel Fellowship, top level with commendation, awarded by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2001 Ruth McCarty Travel Award from the Department of Communication Arts.
1998 Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Two-Year Fellowship
-2000 awarded by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1998 Vilas Award received from the Department of Communication Arts.
1997 BUNAC Education Scholarship Trust (BEST) award from the BUNAC academic division, an affiliate of the UK Fulbright Commission.
1997 Distinction Award received from the Department of Film and Television Studies, Warwick University, for my M.A. thesis on Classical Hollywood acting style.
1997 Lord Rootes Memorial Award from Warwick University for American Autumn, a video production and travel narrative project produced during six weeks of travelling by Greyhound buses across North America.
Refereed Conference Papers
“States of Mind, States of the Art: Lyrical Design and Contemporary French Cinema.” Paper proposal submitted for the panel “Changing Architectures of Contemporary French Cinema,” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Philadelphia. March 2008.
“Sexuality and High Film Art.” Respondent Paper given for the panel “Rethinking Shock Value: Contemporary Representations of Sexuality,” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Vancouver, Canada. March, 2006.
“Star, Interrupted: The Reinvention of James Stewart.” Paper presented at the Media Stardom Conference, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH. October, 2005.
“Under Your Skin: Marina de Van and the Contemporary French cinéma du corps.” Paper presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Institute of Education, London, England. April, 2005.
“Brutal Intimacy: Recent French Cinema and Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible.” Paper presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, GA. March, 2004.
“Breaking the Waves: Rethinking the History of the French Nouvelle vague.” Paper presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Minneapolis, MN. April, 2003.
“Un flic, un style: The polars of Jean-Pierre Melville.” Paper presented in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Communication Arts Colloquium. April, 2002.
“Jean-Pierre Melville and 1970s French Film Style.” Paper presented at the Studies in French Cinema international film conference, Institut Français, London, England. April, 2002.
“A Band Apart?: Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean-Luc Godard at the Cusp of the New Wave.” Paper presented at the Midwestern Conference of Film, Literature and Language, Northern Illinois University, IL. April, 2002.
“From Extra To Everyman: The Expressive Dialectic of Actor and Director in the Films of Frank Capra and James Stewart.” Paper presented in The Visible Man international film conference, Udine University, Udine, Italy. April, 2001.
“Stardom, Genre and Hollywood Performance.” Paper presented at Warwick University’s Department of Film and Television Studies Colloquium, Warwick, England. June, 1998.
Chaired Conference Panels
“Changing Architectures of Contemporary French Cinema.” Co-chair of proposed panel at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Philadelphia. March 2008.
“Cinema and the Craft of Provocation.” Organized and chaired panel of international scholars at the Cinema and Media Studies annual conference, Institute of Education, London, England. April, 2005.
“At the Vanguard of French Cinema.” Organized and chaired panel of international scholars at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, GA. March, 2004
“The French New Wave Revisited.” Organized and chaired panel at the Midwestern Conference of Film, Literature and Language, Northern Illinois University, IL. April, 2002.
Invited Lectures and Scholarly Presentations
“Minimalist Iran: Political Revisionism in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence.” Invited lecture at the One Book, One Community Iranian film series, Randall Library Theater, Wilmington, NC. October 2007.
“The Rules of the Game: Jafar Panahi’s Offside and Contemporary Iranian Cinema.” Invited lecture at the One Book, One Community Iranian film series, Lumina Theater, Wilmington, NC. September 2007.
“Army of One: Jean-Pierre Melville’s L’Armée des ombres.” Invited introductory lecture to Cinematique, Thalian Hall, Wilmington, NC. November, 2006.
“Rebels and Renegades: Scholarly Pursuits in Film.” Invited lecture for the Film Studies Department’s Moviemakers and Scholars series. March, 2006.
“Race and the Academy: Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.” Introductory lecture for the Wilmington, NC One Book, One Community series. January, 2006
“Rings, Cures, and Grudges: Contemporary J-Horror.” Invited presentation at the UNCW’s Halloween Theater event. October, 2005.
“Democracy and Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes to Washington.” Panel participant for the UNCW’s September 11th Project. September, 2005.
“Louis Feuillade: Mystery and Mise-en-scène.” Invited introduction to the annual UNCW Silents, Please early film event. August, 2005.
“Franco-Vietnamese Cinema and Tran Anh Hung’s The Scent of Green Papaya.” Invited presentation for the Wilmington, NC One Book, One Community series. February, 2005.
“Frank Capra, Hollywood, and It’s A Wonderful Life.” Invited presentation and panel participation at the UNCW/Capra family’s annual panel discussion and screening. December, 2003; and December, 2004.
“Eyes Without A Face: Georges Franju and the French Horror Film.” Invited presentation at the UNCW’s Halloween Theater Event. October, 2004.
“Out of the (American) Past: The Myth of Film Noir.” Invited lecture at the Cape Fear Crime Festival, Wilmington, NC. October, 2004.
“Georges Méliès and the Early Cinema of Attractions.” Invited presentation at the annual UNCW Silents, Please early film event. August, 2004.
“Bruno Dumont, Twentynine Palms, and Contemporary French Cinema.” Invited presentation at the Cucalorus Film Festival, Wilmington, NC. March, 2004.
“Three Colors: Kieslowski.” Invited presentation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Kryzysztof Kieslowski retrospective. March, 2003.
“The Films of Agnès Varda.” Invited panel member and respondent as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Agnès Varda retrospective, on Madison Public Radio. September, 2002.