Cinema Faculty in the Department of Communication
The Department of Communication is home to three specialists in the area of Cinema.
Stephen Prince, Ph. D.
113 Shanks Hall • sprince@vt.edu
Stephen Prince has taught film history, criticism and theory at Virginia Tech for 18 years. His research and publications focus on violence in motion pictures, on Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema, on the American film industry, on American film during the 1980s, and on political cinema. The author of numerous essays and book chapters, his work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
He currently is the Past President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the world’s largest organization of film scholars, academics, students and professionals.
His audio commentaries have appeared on the DVDs of films by directors Akira Kurosawa and Sam Peckinpah.
To date, Prince has published ten books. Click here for more information about Dr. Prince's work.
Paul Harrill, M.F.A.
107 Shanks Hall • pharrill@vt.edu
Paul Harrill’s narrative films and documentary videos have screened at film festivals, cinematheques, and museums on five continents. Venues have included the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Sundance Film Festival, where Harrill’s short film Gina, An Actress, Age 29 was awarded the Jury Prize. In 2001, he was recognized by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Harrill’s work has been supported by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and the Aperture Film Grant (among others), and by residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Professor Harrill has taught courses in Digital Film/Video Production at Virginia Tech since 2006. In addition to his teaching and filmmaking, Harrill maintains a popular weblog, Self-Reliant Film, which discusses issues surrounding the art and practice of do-it-yourself filmmaking.
For more information about Harrill's films, click here.
Ashley Maynor, M.F.A.
137 Shanks Hall • amaynor@vt.edu
Ashley Maynor is a documentarian whose films and new media works have been exhibited around the country. Maynor is also engaged with building communities through video partnerships, empowering youth and communities to tell their own stories.
Maynor's creative work, outreach, and research have been supported by the Southern Humanities Media Fund, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
In addition to teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia, Professor Maynor has taught workshops as a video facilitator for Scribe Video Center’s Precious Places Project and as a guest artist in the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge’s Artists in Schools program.
Locally, she is the co-founder and program director of Virginia Tech's Blacksburg Stories Youth Video Workshop. Maynor also organizes Southwest Virginia's annual Home Movie Day celebration.
Maynor joined the Virginia Tech Cinema Program in Fall 2008 as a Visiting Assistant Professor. For more information about Maynor's work, visit her website.
Affiliated Faculty
Outside of the Department of Communication, several professors around the university teach courses and conduct research in the area of Cinema Studies.
- Dr. Michael Bliss, Instructor, Dept. of English, specialist on film and literature, film and religion
- Mr. John Boyer, Instructor, Dept. of Geography, specialist on international film
- Dr. Sam Cook, Associate Professor, Dept. of IDST, specialist in images of American Indians on film
- Dr. Stefanie Hofer, Assistant Professor of German, specialist in German cinema
- Dr. Neal King, Associate Professor, Dept. of IDST, specialist in sociology of film
- Dr. Soshana Knapp, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, specialist on film and literature
- Dr. Paulo Polanah, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, specialist in black cinema
- Dr. Karl Precoda, Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. of IDST, specialist in experimental film and 1960s American cinema
- Dr. Michael Saffle, Professor, Dept. of IDST, specialist in music and film
- Dr. J. D. Stahl, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, specialist in literature and film
- Dr. Brent Stevens, Instructor, Dept. of English, specialist in the horror film
- Dr. Robert Stephens, Assistant Professor of History, specialist in social history through film
- Dr. Janell Watson, Assistant Professor of French, specialist in French cinema