Work

Check out some examples of my work below.

Publications

Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences. Featured News and Cross Sections: Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences Magazine. As communications manager at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, I wrote and edited stories for the school’s website and their annual magazine.

Skirball Cultural Center. Oasis: The Magazine of the Skirball Cultural Center. In my role as senior communications manager at the Skirball Cultural Center, I regularly contributed to the institution’s annual magazine. As a consultant, I also edited the Skirball’s twenty-fifth anniversary issue of Oasis, which was published in 2022.

  • “Connected in Conscience,” 2022. This article illuminates how the 2021 exhibition Ai Weiwei: Trace, featuring eighty-three LEGO® brick portraits of political prisoners, underscored the importance of free speech and the power of resistance.

  • “Nourishment for Body and Spirit” and “Treasuring Our Shared Humanity,” 2019. For the 2019 issue, I wrote two articles: one about a Passover-themed program focused on how the Jewish tradition of welcoming the stranger remains relevant today; and another about the Skirball’s commitment to using archaeology as a teaching tool.

  • “Expanding Horizons,” 2018. This article recounts how a group of adult students explored the diverse stories of Los Angeles through the city’s street art.

  • “Together in Song,” 2017. For this issue, I wrote about how the Skirball's exhibition Paul Simon: Words & Music brought diverse communities and generations together through music.

  • “Projecting Social Change,” 2016. This article shows how a film series, programmed in partnership with the Social Impact Media Awards, inspired viewers to take action in their communities and abroad.

Skirball Cultural Center. An Ark for All, 2018. Developed in partnership with Infiniteach Inc., this app features short videos, a schedule, a sensory-friendly map, and a game to help children with autism spectrum disorders or other developmental disabilities prepare for their visit to Noah's Ark at the Skirball™. I wrote and edited copy in the app, sourced images for videos, and oversaw design of the app logo and sensory-friendly map.

“The Rumors Are True! Gossip Girl and the Cooptation of the Cult Fan.” In Spectatorship: Shifting Theories of Gender, Sexuality, and Media, edited by Roxanne Samer and William Whittington. 260–66. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. In this peer-reviewed book chapter, originally published in the journal Spectator in 2010, I illustrate how the first season of the television series Gossip Girl not only situates fan practices once described as "cult" into the "mainstream" but also embeds what Henry Jenkins describes as "convergence culture" into the narrative of the show.

Cleveland International Film Festival. Marketing Copy, 2005–2015. I worked with the Cleveland International Film Festival in numerous capacities between 2005 and 2022. My various responsibilities included writing and editing marketing copy—film synopses, filmmaker biographies, event recaps, and interviews with filmmakers—for the festival's program guide, website, and daily newspaper.

“Ephemeral Traces.” Spectator 33, no. 1 (Spring 2013). Ken Provencher and I coedited this issue of Spectator, the University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism. With articles ranging in topic from the historiography of female adolescence in early American cinema to the theoretical implications of unwanted cell phone photography, the issue explores how the concept of ephemerality offers diverse interpretational frameworks to media scholars.

Casablanca: Inside the Script. Burbank: Warner Bros. Digital Publishing, 2012. Working with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, I conducted archival and secondary research and wrote a production history of Casablanca for this e-book, which also features images of artifacts, behind-the-scenes photography, film stills, and the shooting script. Casablanca: Inside the Script received the Publishing Innovation Award for Best Digital First e-Book at Digital Book World 2013.

Workshops

Cleveland International Film Festival. FilmSlam Teachers Workshops, 2016–2020. Offered annually by the Cleveland International Film Festival, the FilmSlam Teachers Workshop is an interactive professional development program that I led for middle and high school educators. Each year, I focused on a different topic related to media literacy, ranging from identifying documentary film conventions and the characteristics of art cinema to analyzing the representation of gender, race, and ethnicity in film.

Conferences

“‘Not All Terms of Endearment’: Shirley MacLaine, Motherhood, and the Evolution of the Star System.” Celebrity Studies Conference. London, England, 2014. For this academic conference presentation, I argued that Shirley MacLaine’s eccentric child-rearing practices were crucial to her establishment and development as a star. As MacLaine’s image subverted notions of family life that had dominated star discourse since the 1920s, she shaped a new model of stardom that—though perhaps painful to her daughter—offered a comparatively more complex representation of femininity at the time.

“A Vocal Minority: Star Activists in the 1960s and 1970s.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. Boston, MA, 2012. At this conference, I traced the history of political activism in star discourse. Focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, I illustrated how stars, willing to alienate parts of the once-sacred mass audience for the sake of their ideals, asserted their newfound political voice through association with and distinction from other stars in terms of legitimacy, agency, ideology, and style.

“Living Punk: The D.C. Punk Scene, Fugazi, and Jem Cohen’s Instrument (1999).” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. New Orleans, LA, 2011. In this paper, I traced a brief history of DC punk as it impacts how the band Fugazi conceptualizes “punk” not merely as a style or genre of music but as an ethos. I then showed how Jem Cohen visualizes punk—not only formally and thematically but also through his unique method of distribution and exhibition—in Instrument (1999), a documentary about Fugazi between 1987 and 1998.

“‘Loaded with Tomatoes’: The Domestic and International Success of Hecht-Lancaster’s Marty (1955).” Screen Studies Conference. Glasgow, Scotland, 2010. For this conference, I argued that by subverting many of the standard practices of the then-faltering Hollywood studio system (including those of “legitimate” source material, the star system, and style), Marty not only garnered international acclaim—earning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955—but also necessitated the use of an alternative, innovative promotional campaign, which aided in its winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards for that year as well.

Dissertation

“Channeling Shirley MacLaine: Stardom, Travel, Politics, and Beyond.” University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, 2014. This dissertation examines the multiple transformations of Shirley MacLaine’s persona between 1954 and 2014. I argue that MacLaine’s transformations as a kook, a traveler, a political activist, and a New Age believer have continuously challenged industrial and cultural definitions of femininity and have enabled her prolonged success both in and outside of the Hollywood film industry. Each chapter interrogates the various media—films, videos, television programs, books, newspaper and magazine articles, and websites—that have constructed the image of MacLaine over the past sixty years. Through each phase in her career, MacLaine has tested the limits of female stardom, venturing her way outside the realm of entertainment in order to discover new avenues of productivity and cultural relevance. At eighty-plus years old, Shirley MacLaine shows no signs of stopping.