Core Faculty

Jennifer Fay

Chair of Cinema & Media Arts
Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Cinema & Media Arts
Professor of English and German Studies
Coordinator of Film Theory and Visual Culture Seminar

Email: j.fay@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Buttrick 003B

Specializations:

• Transatlantic Film and Media Theory
• Media Aesthetics and Politics
• Environmental Humanities
• Comparative Film Histories

Jonathan Waters

Associate Chair of Cinema & Media Arts
Curator of International Lens (iLens)
Principle Senior Lecturer of Cinema & Media Arts
Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Education

Email: j.waters@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Buttrick 003E

Specializations:

• Production
• Film
• Cinematography
• Directing
• Screenwriting

Jonathan Rattner

Associate Professor of Cinema & Media Arts and Art
Director of Undergraduate Studies for Cinema & Media Arts

Email: jonathan.l.rattner@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Buttrick 003D

Specializations:

• Documentaries
• 16mm
• Art Cinema
• Cinematography
• Experimental Filmmaking

Mickey Casad

Senior Lecturer of Cinema & Media Arts
Executive Director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Digital Humanities

Email: m.casad@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Digital Humanities Center

Specializations:

• Digital Humanities
• Race, Gender, and Technology
• Digital Archives
• Cultural Memory
• Posthumanism

Jay Clayton

William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and Cinema & Media Arts
Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy

Email: jay.clayton@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Curb Center

Specializations:

• Game Studies
• Video Gaming
• Transmedia
• Remediation
• Communication of Science

Iggy Cortez

Assistant Professor of Cinema & Media Arts and English
Coordinator of Film Theory and Visual Culture Seminar

Email: cesar.ignacio.r.cortez@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Buttrick 003C

Specializations:

• World Art Cinema
• Digital Media Ecologies
• Queer Theory
• Comparative Critical Race Studies
• American Independent Film

CARMINE GRIMALDI

Assistant Professor of Cinema & Media Arts

Email: carmine.grimaldi@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Buttrick 003A

Specializations:

• Film Production
• Documentary and Hybrid Cinema
• Critical Media Practice
• History of Media, Technology, and Science

Krista Knight

Writer in Residence for Cinema & Media Arts and Theatre

Email: krista.knight@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Neely 206

Specializations:

• Playwriting and screenwriting
• Stage and Screen
• Storytelling
• Media for Young Audiences
• Machinima
• Libretto
• Virtual Reality

LUTZ KOEPNICK

Max Kade Foundation Chair of German Studies
Professor of Cinema & Media Arts
Chair of the Department of German, Russian, and East European Studies
Director of the Program in Comparative Media Analysis and Practice (CMAP)

Email: lutz.koepnick@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Furman 121A

Specializations:

• Media Art
• Art Cinema
• Sound and Video Installation Art
• Aesthetic Theory
• Media Theory
• German Film History

Andrea Mirabile

Associate Professor of Italian and Cinema & Media Arts

Email: andrea.mirabile@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Furman 224

Specializations:

• Italian Cinema
• French Cinema
• Visual Theory
• Word and Image
• Ekphrasis

Claire Sisco King

Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Cinema & Media Arts
Director of Undergraduate Studies for Communication Studies

Email: claire.s.king@vanderbilt.edu
Office: 220L Edgehill

Specializations:

• Critical Cultural Studies
• Rhetoric
• Intersectional Feminism
• Celebrity
• Trauma

James McFarland

Associate Professor of German, Russian, and East European Studies
Director of Undergraduate Studies for German, Russian, and East European Studies

Email: james.mcfarland@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Furman 119

Specializations:

• Idealist philosophy
• Nietzsche
• Critical theory
• Film
• Modernism

Ole Molvig

Assistant Professor of History, Communications of Science and Technology, and Physics
Founder of the emergent technology lab at the Wond’ry
Curator of the Garland Historical Scientific Instruments Collection

Email: ole.molvig@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Benson Hall 121

Specializations:

• History of science, with an emphasis on the physical sciences
• History of technology
• Intellectual & cultural history
• Communication of science and technology