Dr. Ramona Curry
Associate Professor of English, Media and Cinema Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Contact Information
- Address: 268 English
- Telephone: 217-244-1665 or (217)333-2391
- Email: rcurry@illinois.edu
Office Hours
- Spring semester 2012: Wednesdays, 1-3 p.m. or by appointment
Education
Ph.D. Northwestern University , M.A. University of Tuebingen, Germany, B.A. University of Chicago
Teaching Interests
American and international cinema history and historiography; writing about film; issues of gender, race/ethnicity and social class in media and popular culture; trans-national media flows; cross-cultural media adaptations; genre theory.
Courses
Most recently taught: American Cinema Since 1950; Writing Film Criticism; The Disney Phenomenon from Aesthetic, Cultural and Economic Perspectives; Historiography of Cinema.
Research Interests
Ramona Curry teaches histories, theories, and strategies for writing about cinema and other forms of popular media and culture. Her research focuses on the sociocultural impact of media institutions, including film stars and cinema distribution and exhibition historically. She is author to date of a book on the shifting cultural functions of Mae West's image over eight decades and of numerous essays that have appeared in anthologies and journals in the US, Europe, and Asia. Prof. Curry has written extensively about German cinema and also about films made in Hong Kong. Her most recent publications draw heavily on census and genealogical records, shipping manifests, and other newly digitized government and newspaper archives, to reveal fresh facets of early trans-Pacific film distribution and reception. Prof. Curry is currently completing a monograph entitled "Trading in Cultural Spaces: How Chinese Film Came to America," which takes an urban cultural geographic and historiographic approach to rewriting American cinema history “from the margins.” She received a 2011 National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship for work on the project, which the NEH has recognized as advancing the goals of its "We the People" initiative.
Selected Publications
Books
- Curry, Ramona. Too Much of a Good Thing: Mae West as Cultural Icon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Book Contributions
- "Making Connections: Benjamin Brodsky and Early Trans-Pacific Cinema Historiography." Chinese Cinema: Tracing the Origins (in Chinese). Ed. Ain-ling Wong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2011. 94-109.
- "Bridging the Pacific with Love Eterne." China Forever: The Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema. Ed. Poshek Fu. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. 174-198.
Journal Articles
- "Benjamin Brodsky (1877-1960): The Transpacific American Film Entrepreneur -- Part One, Making A TRIP THRU CHINA ." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 18.1 (2011): 58-94.
- "Benjamin Brodsky (1877-1960): The Trans-Pacific American Film Entrepreneur – Part Two, Taking A TRIP THRU CHINA to America." Journal of American - East Asian Relations 18.2 (2011): 142-180.
Reviews
- Curry, Ramona. "Reviving the History, Revising the Historiography of Female Media Pioneers." Rev. of Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood; The Girl from God’s Country:Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema; It’s One O’Clock and Here Is Mary Margaret McBride; The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons Journal of Women’s History 21.3 (2009): 188-203.
Works in Progress
- Monograph: "Trading in Cultural Spaces: How Chinese FIlm Came to America"
- Essay: "'So quick forgotten': Benjamin Brodsky's Trans-Pacific Film Distribution Enterprise, 1908-1915"
