I teach literature and film in the Department of English and Creative Writing and the Cinema and Media Studies at Wellesley College. I focus particularly on post-World-War-II American poetry and film. The poets I’ve written on include John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, while the topics of my published work in film and media range from Blade Runner and Scalett Johansson’s sci-fi films to the later work of the Olsen Twins.
In recent years I’ve taught courses on romantic comedy, classic American short stories, literary theory, film genre, film noir, horror movies, and 21st century cinema. In spring 2026 I’m teaching a new course on Alfred Hitchcock.
Newly-released Book
My book Dark Film, Blood Money: The Economic Unconscious of American Neo-Noir Cinema, was published by Intellect Books early in 2026. The book interprets American neo-noir filmmaking, from the 19070s to the 2020s, through the lens of economics. It reads neo-noir filmmaking as an expression of anxieties around work, money, trust, and exchange that have arisen as America’s postwar prosperity has faded into economic and social precarity and decline.
