Susan M. White Ph.D.

Professor of Film and Literature, Department of English

PRESENT POSITION

Associate Professor of Film and Literature, Department of English, University of Arizona
Film Editor, Arizona Quarterly

EDUCATION

1987  Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Johns Hopkins University
1981  M.A., French, Johns Hopkins University
1978  B.A., Semiotics, University of California at Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa
1977 D.E.U.G., UFR Cinéma, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III (Censier)

TEACHING INTERESTS

Film Theory, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies,
American and European Cinema History and Theory,  French Cinema,
19th and 20th Century American, French, and British Literature.

COURSES TAUGHT

At the University of Arizona:
In the Dept of English:

Undergraduate: Senior Seminar on Gender and Violence;  History of International Cinema;  Race, Gender and Violence in the Western; Gender Histories in Film Noir and the Hard-Boiled Novel; Hitchcock and Adaptation; Crime Film and Fiction, Women Filmmakers: Silent Era to Present; French Cinema History; Women in Literature; Honors Seminar on African-American Literature and Film; Senior Seminar on Melodrama in Literature and Film; Seminars and lecture courses on Stanley Kubrick; .Other. Representations of America (Herzog, Wenders, Godard, Puig, Kafka, Micheaux, Spike Lee, Olmos, Allison Anders); Literary Analysis

Graduate:  Feminist Film Theory; Film Theory and Criticism; Hitchcock and Lacan; Seminar on Gender and Melodrama (with LGBT focus); Classical Hollywood and its Discontents

In the Dept. of Media Arts
Graduate Seminars: Feminist Media Theory, Women's Cinema, Film Theory; Undergraduate Courses:  All my 400-level English Dept. film classes are cross-listed with Media Arts.

At the University of Michigan:
In the Film/Video Program:

Undergraduate: Major Directors: Ophuls and von Sternberg, Gender in Film, American Film History, Film Noir

In the Dept. of Romance Languages:

Undergraduate: The History of French Cinema;

Graduate Seminar: La Politique du cinéma français

At the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III (Censier):

  •  Le cinéma américain des années cinquante
  •  Les films d.Alfred Hitchcock
  •  Le Western
  •  Le film noir américain

           At the Ecole Normale Supérieure 
                   Race, Genre, Mélodrame

PREVIOUS AND VISITING POSITIONS

Spring 2009:  Visiting Associate Professor, Département de l.Histoire de l.Art, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
Spring 2002:  Visiting Associate Professor, UFR Cinéma et Audiovisuel, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III
1991-92:     Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, Program in Film and Video (two semesters); Dept. of Romance Languages (one semester)
1986-87      Instructor, "Women on Film," Women's Studies Program, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland
1979-87      Instructor of French, Teaching Assistant in European and American Cinema, Freshman Literature, Social History of the Family, History of Psychiatry and Culture, Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University

AWARDS AND HONORS

2008  College of Humanities Distinguished Faculty Service to the College ($3000)
2006 College of Humanities Distinguished Advising and Mentoring Award ($1000)Provost.s Author.s Support Fund ($500 for French Translation of The Cinema of Max Ophuls by Noël Burch at l.Harmattan; series editor Geneviève Sellier)
2005 Foreign Travel Grant for SCMS Conference, London
2003  DAAD Grant for support of conference Max Ophuls Beyond Borders, College of William & Mary, co-organized by Susan White and Michael Trosset
2002 Humanities Seminars Superior Teaching Award ($1500)
2001-2002  Provost.s General Education Teaching Award ($2500)
2001  Foreign Travel Grant (invited speaker at Il Piacere e il Disincanto nel Cinema de Max Ophuls Conference in Pordenone, Italy)
2000 Nominated for Outstanding Faculty Mentor of Graduate Students
1999 UA Humanities Research Initiative Grant (Summer Award)
1997 UA Summer Session Excellence in Teaching Award (Honorable Mention)
1995  Southwest Institute for Research on Women/Summer Stipend
1989  NEH Summer Stipend
1988  UA Provost's Teaching Improvement Award , UA Small Grants Program Research Grant ($3,000 for archival work in France and East Germany), Society for Cinema Studies Annual Dissertation Award
1979-87  Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University
1982   JHU Fellowship for Graduate Studies Abroad, Paris, France
1981-82  Alumni Fellow, the Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University
1980-81  Human Biology Fellow, The Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University

PUBLICATIONS

Book:

The Cinema of Max Ophuls:  Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman.  Columbia University Press, 1995.

Edited Journal Issues:

Special Issue of Arizona Quarterly, .Max Ophuls Beyond Borders,. 60 (5), 2004:  222 pp.
Noël Herpe, Lutz Bacher and Susan White, ed., 1895: Revue de l.association française de recherche sur l.histoire du cinéma, no. 34-5 (October 2001). 455 pp.  Special Issue on Max Ophuls.

Articles and Book Chapters:

Hitchcock and Performance,. in Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague, ed., The Hitchcock Companion (N.Y.:  Blackwell, 2009).  FORTHCOMING.
Marlon Brando, Liar,. in R. Barton Palmer, ed., Screen Stars of the 1950s (New Brunswick, N.J.:  Rutgers UP, 2009), FORTHCOMING.
'I felt like, "This guy's really hurting me." And it hurt.': Funny Men in Pain from Zooolander to Anchorman," in Murray Pomerance and John Sakeris, ed., Popping Culture, 5th edition (Boston:  Pearson Education, 2008):  129-38.
Kubrick.s Obscene Shadows. in Robert Kolker, ed., Stanley Kubrick.s 2001: A Space Odyssey, New Essays. N.Y: Oxford UP, 2006, 127-46.
Public Cultural Studies at the Borders of Nation and Class..  Social Anarchism, 38 (2005). Atlantic Center for Research and Education, Baltimore, MD:  53-56.
You Want a Good Crack in the Mouth?.:  Rebel Without a Cause, Violence, and the Cinema of Nicholas Ray. in J. David Slocum, ed., Rebel Without a Cause: Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork (NY:  SUNY UP, 2005), 53-87.
James Stewart: Corps du maître, maître du corps,. in Double Jeu: Theatre/Cinema No. 1: L.acteur créateur, ed. Vincent Amiel and Gérard-Denis Farcy (Caen: PUC, 2003).
La mascolinità (che in) tossica nei film di Max Ophuls,. in Il Piacere e il Disincanto nel Cinema de Max Ophuls, ed. Luciano De Giusti and Luca Giuliani; trans. Sonia Dose and Giuliani Puppin (Milano:  Editrice Il Castor: 2003), 111-123.
Lola Montès and the Cinema of Attractions,. 1895 Special Issue on Max Ophuls (Fall 2001): 289-301.
"T(he)-Men's Room:  Masculinity and Space in Anthony Mann's T-Men,. in Peter Lehman, ed., Masculinity :  Bodies, Movies, Culture (N.Y.: Routledge, 2001):  99-114.
Vertigo and Problems of Knowledge in Feminist Film Theory,. in Richard Allen and S. Ishii-Gonzales, ed., Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays (London: British Film Institute, 1999), 279-306.
"Veronica Clare and the New Film Noir Heroine," Camera Obscura 33-34 (Jan. 1996):  77-100.
 "The Trouble With Angels," with Mary Beth Haralovich and Janet Jakobson, in Annette Kuhn, ed., Queen of the 'B's:  Ida Lupino behind the camera (London:  Flicks Books, 1995):  118-136.
 "'I Burn for Him':  Sado-Masochism and Female Subjectivity in Stahl's Back Street (1932)" Post Script 14, Nos. 1&2 (Fall 1994/Winter-Spring 1995):  59-80.
"Split Skins:  Female Masochism and Bodily Mutilation in The Little Mermaid," in Jim Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Collins, ed., Film Theory Goes to the Movies (N.Y.:  Routledge, 1992): 182-195.
Allegory and Referentiality:  Vertigo and Feminist Film Criticism," MLN 106, 5 (Dec 1991): 910-32.
"Individual Response," Camera Obscura (special issue on "The Spectatrix"), 20-21 (1989):  327-331.
"Male Bonding, Hollywood Orientalism and the Repression of the Feminine in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket," Arizona Quarterly 44, 3 (Autumn 1988): 120-144, reprinted in Inventing Vietnam, The War in Film and Television, Temple University Press 1991: 204-30.
 
Book Reviews:

Charlotte Chandler, It.s Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock: A Personal Biography in The Hitchcock Annual, 2005-6.
Charles Barr, Vertigo (London: BFI, 2002). in The Hitchcock Annual, 2002-3: 220-6.
Regarding Female Spectatorship: A Review of The Acoustic Mirror, by Kaja Silverman and The Women Who Knew Too Much by Tania Modleski," Quarterly Review of Film and Video 12, 2 (1991): 93-105.

Media

Commentary track, Lola Montès DVD, Second Sight, UK, 110 min. (2009).  Licensed by Criterion, N.Y., 2009.
Commentary track, with Gaylyn Studlar, Max Ophuls, The Earrings of Madame de DVD, 105 min., Criterion, N.Y,, 2008.
Commentary track for Max Ophuls, La Ronde (1950) DVD release; 90 min., Second Sight, UK; Licensed by Criterion, N.Y. 2008.
Chicago Public Radio,  .Odyssey,. Film Forum: Comedy and Masculinity, Ron Gregg, Hosted by Gretchen Helfrich, July 23, 2004
France Culture, Roundtable discussion of Max Ophuls with Michel Ciment, Noël Herpe, and Jean-Louis Bourget , hosted by Michel Ciment  .Projection Privée,. March, 2002.
Max Ophüls. Il piacere e il disincanto,. Italian television interview (RAI 2), Feb. 2, 2002.

PRESENTATIONS

"Only the Lonely: .The Solitary Protagonist in the Films of Nicholas Ray," Arizona Quarterly Symposium, March 27, 2009.
Marlon Brando, Liar,. Dept. of Women.s Studies, University of Arizona, 2008.
The Power of Acting Bad:  Performance in Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut,. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, April 6-9, 2007.  Also presented in various versions at The Arizona Quarterly Symposium (March 30, 2007); Emory University, Atlanta (March 27, 2007); Washington University, St. Louis (April 26, 2007); Fribourg University (Switzerland) (November 24, 2007)
Topographies of Nation and Gender in HBO.s Deadwood,. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Vancouver, March 2-5, 2006.
Public Cultural Studies,. Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference, Tucson, AZ, April 21-24, 2005.
James Dean: Rebel After 50 Years,. Workshop presentation, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, London, March 28-April 2, 2005.
"The Strange and the Familiar: Nicholas Ray and Auteurism,. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, March 4-7, 2004.
Response to Mary Ann Doane.s talk on .The Close-up,. English Dept., Univ. of Arizona, April 18, 2003.
"Eye, Rope, Knife: Anthony Mann's The Furies,. The American West in Film and Television Conference, November 7-9, 2002, Kansas City, Missouri.
Presentation on .Les femmes dans le cinéma de Max Ophuls,. as part of a .rencontre avec les rédacteurs du numéro 34/35 de la revue 1895. (a meeting with the editors of the special issue of the film history journal 1895 on Max Ophuls), at the Cinémathèque française, Paris, France, March 22, 2002.
James Stewart: le corps du maître, le maître du corps,. presented at the Département des Arts du Spectacle as part of a .Journée d.études,. Université de Caen, Caen, France, May 25, 2002.
Toxic Masculinity in the Films of Max Ophuls" at Max Ophuls: Il piacere eil disincanto, Pordenone, Italy, Feb. 1-3, 2002.
Domestic Visions:  Women, Home and Commodity Culture in Weber.s Too Wise Wives, Women and the Silent Screen Conference, Nov. 2-4 2001.
Between Jobs:  Nicholas Ray.s Men,. Hollywood and Its Discontents: Subverting the Studio System,. Conference sponsored by the University of Arizona Extended University, Tucson, May 16-18, 2001.
The Y Chromosome is a Lonely Place: Men, Women, and the Search for Home in Three Films by Nicholas Ray,. Speaker Series on Gender and Film, Program in Film and Media Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, April 5, 2001.
Bodies in Peril: Agricultural Empire and National Identity in Anthony Mann.s Border Incident,. International Conference on Global and Multicultural Critiques of Whiteness, Dartmouth College, August 4-6, 2000.
The Mechanic of Nothingness: Bronson as Sartrean Samourai,. Point Blank: A National Conference on Tough Guy Film and Culture, Tucson, May 18-20, 2000.
Ophuls, Kubrick and the Obscene Shadow of the Law in Eyes Wide Shut,. Society for Cinema Studies, Chicago, March 2000.
Hitchcock.s Faces,. Hitchcock: A Centennial Celebration (Sponsored by NYU), New York City, October 1999.
The Female Body in Performance: Workshop with Filmmaker Alison Anders,. Arizona Humanities Council/Arizona International Film Festival:, Univ. of Arizona, April 1999.
Borders and Masculinity in Anthony Mann.s T-Men and Border Incident,. Society for Cinema Studies Annual Conference, San Diego, April 1998.
T(he)-Men.s Room: Masculinity and Space in Anthony Mann's T-Men," Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation, New York, November 20, 1997. (Delivered in an expanded version at the Symposium on Men's Bodies and Film:  Images of Masculinity in Film and Video, Univ. of Arizona, January 21, 1998).
"Who Are We?  America in Film," Composition Program Roundtable Discussion, UA Dept. of English, November 12, 1997.
"Intimate Landscapes: Sandra Semchuk in the Context of Women's Autobiographical Film," Center for Creative Photography, Univ. of Arizona, September 10, 1997.
"Institutions and Identities," panel respondent), Society for Cinema Studies Conference, New York City, March 1995.
"Cinema and Violence," (panel respondent), Midwestern Modern Languages Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 1994.
"Femininity and Masochism in Magnificent Obsession," Society for Cinema Studies Annual Conference, Feb. 1993, presented in expanded form at the Arizona Quarterly Symposium, March 1993.
"TV's Modern Film Noir Heroine:  Veronica Clare." Console-ing Passions Conference, May 1993.
Response to Thomas Elsaesser, "Forgetting Fassbinder." Symposium on the 10th Anniversary of Fassbinder's Death, University of Michigan, October 1992.
Round Table on "Cinema and Prostitution." Symposium on Prostitution, College of Law, University of Michigan, October 1992.
"Split Skins:  Female Masochism and Bodily Mutilation in The Silence of the Lambs and The  Little Mermaid." Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, December 1991. "John Stahl's Imitation of Life." Screen Studies Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, June 1991.
"Aurality and the Image in Max Ophuls' Cinema," Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, October 1990; presented in modified form at Society for Cinema Studies Conference, May 1991.
"Censorship and Jingoism from D.W. Griffith to Spike Lee."  University Honors Luncheon Guest Speaker, University of Arizona, September 1990.
I Burn for Him': Sado-Masochism and Female Subjectivity in Stahl's Back Street (1932),. Society for Cinema Studies Conference, May 1990.
"Allegory and Refentiality:  Vertigo and Feminist Criticism.," Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, December 1989.
"Women in Film Noir:  The Maltese Falcon."  Guest Lecture, Hampshire College, March 1989.
"Recent Hitchcock Criticism," Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, October, 1988.
"Male Bonding and the Repression of the Feminine in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket,. Society for Cinema Studies Conference, June 1988.
"When Is a Remake Just a Remake? From Litvak's Mayerling to Ophuls' De Mayerling à Sarajevo," Florida State University Conference on Intertextuality, January 1988.
"The Representation of Women in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket," Women's Studies Program, University of Arizona, January, 1988.
"The Economy of the Feminine in Ophuls' Madame de . . .," Society for Cinema Studies Conference, June 1987.
"Ophuls' Letter from an Unknown Woman," Round Table Discussion at the Society for Cinema Studies Annual Meeting, 1986.
"Camille and Metaphors of Illness," NEH Summer Film Series Speaker, Johns Hopkins Medical Institution, 1985.
"The Politics of Melodrama in Sirk's Written on the Wind," NEH Colloquium on Tragedy and Melodrama, Johns Hopkins Medical Institution, 1985.

SERVICE

2008    Poetry Center Board Member; English Dept. Undergraduate Curriculum Committee; Dissertation Committees: Kyle Bishop (English, chair), Angela Ross (Comparative Culture and Literary Studies, chair), Michael Parker (English), Amanda Gradesek (English); Preliminary Exam Committees:  Amy Parziale (English, chair), Michael Kolakoski (English, chair); reviewed publications for tenure committee of Professor David Greven, Connecticut College; reviewed manuscripts for Men and Masculinities.

2006-2008 Director of Undergraduate Studies (beginning July 2004), Dept. of English, UA; outside Reviewer for the University of Oklahoma.s Dept. of Film Studies. Six-Year Review; Dissertation Committees:  Sean Cobb (English, chair, defended Dec., 2007), Angela Ross (CCLS, chair), Michael Parker (English, committee member); Ariane Burford (English, chair); reviewed book manuscript for Wayne State University Press:  Hilary Radner, Alistair Fox, and Irene Bessièrre, ed., Jane Campion:  Cinema, Nation, Identity (435 pages).

2005-6  Director of Undergraduate Studies (beginning July 2004), Dept. of English, UA; Dissertation Committees: Edison Cassadore (CCLS, defended); Sean Cobb (English, chair), Angela Ross (CCLS, chair), Debra White-Stanley (English, chair, defended); Executive Council and Program Committee Member, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2004-7); Tenure Committee for Prof. Charles Bertsch, English Dept., UA.

2003-4  Director of English Honors Program; Director of English Dept. Scholarship Committee; Preliminary Examination Committees: Sean Cobb (English), Angela Ross (CCLS); Dissertation Committees: Joanna Hearne (English, defended), Debra White-Stanley, Sean Cobb (English), Jodi Kelber Kaye (Women.s Studies, defended), Elise Marubbio (CCLS, chair, defended), Diane Wiener, Judd Ruggill (CCLS); MA examination committees:  Chad Vollrath (chair, passed).

 2001  Ph.D. Preliminary Examination Committees:  (CCLS) Ruggill; (English) Scott, Breuer, Wiener; MA Examination Committee:  Cobb; Max Ophuls Centenary Conference Committee (chair).

1999-2000  Search Committee (5 faculty hires 1998-2000); Dean.s Academic Advisory Committee; Undergraduate Literature  Curriculum Committee,  English Dept. Council, Graduate Literature Curriculum Committee, Conference Program Committee: Point Blank: Tough Guy Film and Culture (May 1999), Hollywood and Its Discontents: Beyond the Studio System (May 2000); Preliminary Examination Committees:Marubbio, (CCLS, chair); Joanna Hearne (English, chair).

1997-8 Dept. of English:  Film Studies Committee, Chair; Undergraduate Curriculum Committee; Dept. Self-Study Committee, Masters Exam Committee:   Feldwick

Dept. of Media Arts:  Masters Exam Committees:  Chaytor, Sorensen (chair), Vlesmas, Proios, Tracy; College of Humanities:  Media Classroom Renovation Committee; COH Mentor Program; National Professional Service:  Society for Cinema Studies Annual Dissertation Award Committee (chair)

1996-7 Dept. of English:  Film Studies Committee (chair); Undergraduate Curriculum Committee; Dean's Academic Advisory Committee, Dissertation Committee: Andreas.

Dept. of Media Arts:  Promotion and Tenure Committee, Master's Exam Committee:   Updike and Bolster (English, chair) Masters Report Committee:  Desai (Media Arts); Univ. of Arizona University Committees:  Graduate Representative for the Dept. of English (through 1999)

National Professional Service:  Society for Cinema Studies Annual Dissertation Award Committee; Manuscript Reviewer for Cinema Journal and the University of Arizona Press.

1995-1996  English Dept:. Film Studies Committee; Chair, Dean's Academic Advisory Committee, Dean.s Academic Advisory Committee Subcommittee on Diversity);Tier I/Tier II Core Curriculum Committee (DAAC representative), English Headship Search Committee

Dept. of Media Arts: Masters Report Committees:  Betsie Gross (CCLS, chair) Kristin Wessel (Dept. of Media Arts, chair)

1994-5  English Dept.:  Committee to create a Media Arts M.A./Ph.D. Minor for English Graduate   Students; English Dept./Media Arts Dept. Film Purchase Committee,;Consultant for  the 1995 Tucson International Film Festival; Preliminary Exam Committee: Nina Bjornsson (English, chair); Qualifying Exam Committee: Randy Accetta (English)

Univ. of Michigan English Dept.  Dissertation Committee: Sharon Snyder;   Program in American Culture; Preliminary Exam Committee: Elizabeth Brent

1993-1994 UA English Dept.:  Association for Women Faculty: Action Committee Chair; Preliminary Exam Committee: Jennifer Ellis (English)

1990-92 Graduate Literature Admissions Committee; Graduate Literature Curriculum Committee; English Honors Committee; Cultural Studies Advisory Board.

1988-90 English Department Council; International Arts Society Film Board; Composition Program Search Committee.

1988-89 English Department Task Force on the Hiring of Women and Minorities, Department of English Self Study Organization and Procedures Committee

1987 Women's Studies Program Rockefeller Grant Review Board

Women's Studies Program Curricular Consultant


LANGUAGES

French (fluent), Italian (reading); Spanish (conversational)

MEMBERSHIPS

Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Modern Language Association