Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Encyclopedia
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is a professor
in the Department of English
, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
, specializing in film studies
, cultural studies
, and Postfeminist Critical Theory. Her newest book is A Short History of Film, published in 2008, from Rutgers University Press
, co-written with Wheeler Winston Dixon
.
A Short History of Film has gone through five printings since its initial 2008 publication, the latest in August, 2010. An audio book of the text was released by University Press Audiobooks in 2011, and a Spanish language translation, Breve historia del cine, was published in November, 2009 by Ediciones Robinbook, Barcelona, Spain.
Her other recent books include:
Foster's book, Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions, was cited by the journal Choice as “Essential . . . one of the Outstanding Academic Books of the Year” for 2004.
Since 1999, with Wheeler Winston Dixon
, Foster has been the Editor-in-Chief of Quarterly Review of Film and Video
. QRFV is an interdisciplinary and internationally recognized academic journal of visual studies, film studies and cultural studies. Published by Routledge, QRFV publishes essays and reviews of considerable significance to the fields of Film Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies. QRFV indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, International Index to Film Periodicals, Film and Literature Index, Post Script, Media Review Digest and Film and Literature Review.
In December 2010, she was appointed Series Editor with Wheeler Winston Dixon
of the new book series New Perspectives on World Cinema, for the Anthem Press, London.
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's other credits include articles published in Text and Performance Quarterly, The Friend: Comment on Romanticism, Film Criticism and Prairie Schooner, as well as the production, direction and screenplay for "Women Who Made the Movies" (1992), a documentary on the history of women filmmakers from 1896-1960.
"Women Who Made The Movies" is in the permanent collections of Dartmouth College
, The Australian Film /TV/Radio School, Vanderbilt University
, Atlanta University, Mount Holyoke College
, Central Michigan University Barnard College
, George Mason University, University of Washington, New York University
, Harvard University
, San Diego State University
, Rice University
, California Institute of the Arts, Indiana University, University of Oklahoma, The African-American Institute, Forum Yokohama (Japan), Duke University
, University of Texas at Austin, California State University at Bakersfield, University of Delaware Avila College, Goucher College, Boston Public Library, Speed Art Museum, University of Evansville, University of Wisconsin–Madison, The University of Washington, The Nederlands Filmmuseum, The University of British Columbia and numerous other colleges, archives and universities.
"Women Who Made The Movies" is used in many film classes, both at the K-12 level and at many universities. It has been screened at numerous international film festivals, and extensively reviewed.
Recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation
Grant for Performance Art, Gwendolyn Foster also served as a judge for final selections of The Southwest Alternate Media Project Independent Production Fellowship Funds of the National Endowment for the Arts, July 29-31, 1993, in Houston, TX, and was a Juror for 16th Annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Student Film Awards.
In the summer of 1994, Foster wrote the screenplay for the French-language feature film "Squatters" which was produced outside of Paris in June, 1994, for French television. In the Winter of 1997, Dr. Foster delivered a lecture at The Museum of Modern Art
in New York on the films of Barbara Hammer, in conjunction with a screening of Hammer’s work, and presented a paper on the work of filmmaker Safi Faye
at the 1997 MLA National Convention in Washington, DC.
Foster’s other articles and essays include “Barbara Hammer
,” in Film Voices: Interviews from Post Script, Gerald Duchovnay, ed., State University of New York Press, 2004; “Monstrosity and the Bad-White Body Film,” in Bad: Infamy, Darkness, Evil and Slime on Screen, Murray Pomerance, ed. State University of New York Press, 2004; “Every Frame Was Precious,” Film Criticism 18.1 (Fall, 2003); “Women Filmmakers in British Sound Cinema,” in The Encyclopedia of British Film, Brian McFarlane, ed., London: Methuen Press /British Film Institute, 2003; “The Post-Colonial Vision of The “Great White” of Lambaréné,” Popular Culture Review, 11. 2 (Summer 2000); ‘“Character Zone: An Interview with Trinh T. Minh-ha
,” Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism, Sandra Liu and Darrell Y. Hamamoto, eds., Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000; “Feminist Theory and the Performance of Lesbian Desire in Persona,” in Ingmar Bergman
’s Persona
, Lloyd Michaels, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Additional articles include “Diasporic Representations of Identity and Space in the films of Mira Nair
,” Deep Focus: A Film Quarterly 7. 3/4 (1999): ‘“Character Zone,” Cinema-Intervals, Trinh T. Minh-ha
, ed., New York: Routledge Press (1999); 227 – 245; “The Women in High Noon: The Metanarrative of Difference,” in The Films of Fred Zinnemann
, Arthur Nolletti, ed., State University of New York Press, 1999; “Foreword: Women Filmmakers.” Women on the Other Side of the Camera: The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia. Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1999: “Performativity and Gender in Alice Guy’s La Vie du Christ,” Film Criticism 23.1 (Fall, 1998), and “Safi Faye
: Ethnographic Films and Questions of Subjectivity,” Popular Culture Review 9. 2 (August 1998).
Dr. Foster’s awards and fellowships include a Maude Hammond Fling Faculty Research Fellowship for A Short History of Film, 2006 -2007; a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award, January, 2004; a Grant-In-Aid Fellowship from the John C. and Nettie V. David Memorial Trust, Fall 2003; $6,500; a Research Fellowship from the University of Nebraska Research Council, for the project “The Films of Alice Guy Blaché,” involving travel to film archives in New Zealand and Amsterdam to view rare film prints of the films of Alice Guy Blaché, 1999; and the prestigious National Emerging Scholar Award, American Association of University Women
, 1998, for teaching, research, and the mentoring of women students.
Foster's interests extend far beyond the limits of conventional film studies; in her most recent writings she explores the intersections between popular culture, the culture of celebrity, television and gender lifestyles, video games and installations, and moving image work on the web.
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
in the Department of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska
The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
, specializing in film studies
Film studies
Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to films. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies...
, cultural studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
, and Postfeminist Critical Theory. Her newest book is A Short History of Film, published in 2008, from Rutgers University Press
Rutgers University Press
Rutgers University Press is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in Piscataway, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University.-History:...
, co-written with Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
.
A Short History of Film has gone through five printings since its initial 2008 publication, the latest in August, 2010. An audio book of the text was released by University Press Audiobooks in 2011, and a Spanish language translation, Breve historia del cine, was published in November, 2009 by Ediciones Robinbook, Barcelona, Spain.
- 21st Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation (with Wheeler Winston Dixon; Rutgers University PressRutgers University PressRutgers University Press is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in Piscataway, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University.-History:...
, 2011) - Class-Passing: Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture, (Southern Illinois UniversitySouthern Illinois UniversitySouthern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
Press, 2005); - Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions (State University of New YorkState University of New YorkThe State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
Press, 2003); - Identity and Memory: The Films of Chantal AkermanChantal AkermanChantal Anne Akerman is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman's best-known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , exemplifies a dedication to the ellipses of conventional narrative cinema.-Early life:Akerman was born to...
(Southern Illinois University Press, 2003); - Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader (RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
, 2002); - Troping the Body: Etiquette, Conduct and Dialogic Performance (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) and
- Captive Bodies: PostcolonialismPostcolonialismPost-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...
in the CinemaFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
(State University of New York Press, 1999).
Foster's book, Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions, was cited by the journal Choice as “Essential . . . one of the Outstanding Academic Books of the Year” for 2004.
Since 1999, with Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
, Foster has been the Editor-in-Chief of Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Quarterly Review of Film and Video
The Quarterly Review of Film and Video, founded in 1962, and now published five times a year by Taylor and Francis, presents critical, historical, and theoretical essays, book reviews, and interviews in the area of moving image studies including film, video, and digital imaging studies...
. QRFV is an interdisciplinary and internationally recognized academic journal of visual studies, film studies and cultural studies. Published by Routledge, QRFV publishes essays and reviews of considerable significance to the fields of Film Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies. QRFV indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, International Index to Film Periodicals, Film and Literature Index, Post Script, Media Review Digest and Film and Literature Review.
In December 2010, she was appointed Series Editor with Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
of the new book series New Perspectives on World Cinema, for the Anthem Press, London.
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's other credits include articles published in Text and Performance Quarterly, The Friend: Comment on Romanticism, Film Criticism and Prairie Schooner, as well as the production, direction and screenplay for "Women Who Made the Movies" (1992), a documentary on the history of women filmmakers from 1896-1960.
"Women Who Made The Movies" is in the permanent collections of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, The Australian Film /TV/Radio School, Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
, Atlanta University, Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
, Central Michigan University Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
, George Mason University, University of Washington, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, San Diego State University
San Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
, Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, California Institute of the Arts, Indiana University, University of Oklahoma, The African-American Institute, Forum Yokohama (Japan), Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, University of Texas at Austin, California State University at Bakersfield, University of Delaware Avila College, Goucher College, Boston Public Library, Speed Art Museum, University of Evansville, University of Wisconsin–Madison, The University of Washington, The Nederlands Filmmuseum, The University of British Columbia and numerous other colleges, archives and universities.
"Women Who Made The Movies" is used in many film classes, both at the K-12 level and at many universities. It has been screened at numerous international film festivals, and extensively reviewed.
Recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
Grant for Performance Art, Gwendolyn Foster also served as a judge for final selections of The Southwest Alternate Media Project Independent Production Fellowship Funds of the National Endowment for the Arts, July 29-31, 1993, in Houston, TX, and was a Juror for 16th Annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Student Film Awards.
In the summer of 1994, Foster wrote the screenplay for the French-language feature film "Squatters" which was produced outside of Paris in June, 1994, for French television. In the Winter of 1997, Dr. Foster delivered a lecture at The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York on the films of Barbara Hammer, in conjunction with a screening of Hammer’s work, and presented a paper on the work of filmmaker Safi Faye
Safi Faye
Safi Faye is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist. She was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film. She has directed several documentary and fiction films focussing on rural life in Senegal.-Early life and education:Safi Faye was born in 1943 in...
at the 1997 MLA National Convention in Washington, DC.
Foster’s other articles and essays include “Barbara Hammer
Barbara Hammer
Barbara Hammer is an American filmmaker in the genre of experimental films and a professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.-Biography:...
,” in Film Voices: Interviews from Post Script, Gerald Duchovnay, ed., State University of New York Press, 2004; “Monstrosity and the Bad-White Body Film,” in Bad: Infamy, Darkness, Evil and Slime on Screen, Murray Pomerance, ed. State University of New York Press, 2004; “Every Frame Was Precious,” Film Criticism 18.1 (Fall, 2003); “Women Filmmakers in British Sound Cinema,” in The Encyclopedia of British Film, Brian McFarlane, ed., London: Methuen Press /British Film Institute, 2003; “The Post-Colonial Vision of The “Great White” of Lambaréné,” Popular Culture Review, 11. 2 (Summer 2000); ‘“Character Zone: An Interview with Trinh T. Minh-ha
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Trinh T. Minh-ha is a filmmaker, writer, academic and composer. She is a world-renowned independent filmmaker and feminist, post-colonial theorist. She teaches courses that focus on women's work as related to cultural politics, post-coloniality, contemporary critical theory and the arts...
,” Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism, Sandra Liu and Darrell Y. Hamamoto, eds., Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000; “Feminist Theory and the Performance of Lesbian Desire in Persona,” in Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
’s Persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
, Lloyd Michaels, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Additional articles include “Diasporic Representations of Identity and Space in the films of Mira Nair
Mira Nair
Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films.She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination...
,” Deep Focus: A Film Quarterly 7. 3/4 (1999): ‘“Character Zone,” Cinema-Intervals, Trinh T. Minh-ha
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Trinh T. Minh-ha is a filmmaker, writer, academic and composer. She is a world-renowned independent filmmaker and feminist, post-colonial theorist. She teaches courses that focus on women's work as related to cultural politics, post-coloniality, contemporary critical theory and the arts...
, ed., New York: Routledge Press (1999); 227 – 245; “The Women in High Noon: The Metanarrative of Difference,” in The Films of Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
, Arthur Nolletti, ed., State University of New York Press, 1999; “Foreword: Women Filmmakers.” Women on the Other Side of the Camera: The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia. Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1999: “Performativity and Gender in Alice Guy’s La Vie du Christ,” Film Criticism 23.1 (Fall, 1998), and “Safi Faye
Safi Faye
Safi Faye is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist. She was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film. She has directed several documentary and fiction films focussing on rural life in Senegal.-Early life and education:Safi Faye was born in 1943 in...
: Ethnographic Films and Questions of Subjectivity,” Popular Culture Review 9. 2 (August 1998).
Dr. Foster’s awards and fellowships include a Maude Hammond Fling Faculty Research Fellowship for A Short History of Film, 2006 -2007; a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award, January, 2004; a Grant-In-Aid Fellowship from the John C. and Nettie V. David Memorial Trust, Fall 2003; $6,500; a Research Fellowship from the University of Nebraska Research Council, for the project “The Films of Alice Guy Blaché,” involving travel to film archives in New Zealand and Amsterdam to view rare film prints of the films of Alice Guy Blaché, 1999; and the prestigious National Emerging Scholar Award, American Association of University Women
American Association of University Women
The American Association of University Women advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. It was founded in 1882 by Ellen Swallow Richards and Marion Talbot...
, 1998, for teaching, research, and the mentoring of women students.
Foster's interests extend far beyond the limits of conventional film studies; in her most recent writings she explores the intersections between popular culture, the culture of celebrity, television and gender lifestyles, video games and installations, and moving image work on the web.