Paula J. Massood
Professor
Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema
Location: 539 25 Washington Ave, Brooklyn NY, 11205
Phone: 718.237.3414
Fax: 718.237.3419
Email:
Paula J. Massood is the author of Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (2003) and Making a Promised Land: Harlem in 20th-Century Photography and Film (2013), and the editor of The Spike Lee Reader (2007). She is Past President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Education:
Ph.D., New York University - 1998 (Cinema Studies)
M.A., New York University - 1990 (Cinema Studies)
B.A., University of New Hampshire - 1987 (Communications)
Areas of Expertise:
African American Film, the City and Cinema, American Film History
Books and Publications
"'We Don?t Need to Dream No More. We Got Real Estate': The Wire, Urban Development, and the Frustrations of the American Dream.? The Apartment Plot Reader. Ed. Pamela Wojcik. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, forthcoming 2016 (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2016
"Gender and Film." Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Gender. Ed. renee c. hoogland. New York: Macmillan, forthcoming 2016. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2016
"Shirley Clarke's The Cool World, The City Dynamic: Representing Crisis and Renewal in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles 1960-1980." Eds. Gregory Foster-Rice, Alison Fisher, and Katherine Bussard. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2015
"Spike Lee?s 4 Little Girls: The Politics of the Documentary Interview," in Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Eds. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2014. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2014
"Feminist Film Theory." Oxford Online Bibliographies. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2013
"Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls: The Politics of the Documentary Interview." Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2013
Making a Promised Land: Harlem in 20th-Century Photography and Film. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2013
"Imagining and Re-Imagining a Promised Land: The Gangster Genre and Harlem's Mythic Past, Present and Future." Sustaining Cities: Urban Lost and Found. Ed. Linda Krause. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2012
"Street Girls with No Future?: Black Women Coming of Age in the City." Contemporary Black Cinema. Ed. Mia Mask. New York: Routledge. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2012
"Teaching African American Film: Politics and Aesthetics." MLA Guide to Teaching Film. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2012
"What 20 Years of Spike Lee's Jungle Fever Teaches Us About Harlem's Identity Crisis" op-ed. >>http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/culture/op-ed-what-20-years-of-spike-lees-jungle-fever-teaches-us-about-harlems-identity-crisis/>> (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2012
"Spike Lee." Oxford On-line Bibliographies. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2011
"Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." Fifty Key U.S. Films. Ed. Sabine Haenni. London: Routledge. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2009
Massood, Paula and Matthew Boyd Goldie. "Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema by Pam Cook" book review. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 26.3: 249-51. (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2009
"African American Urban Cinema." African Americans and Popular Culture. Ed. Todd Boyd. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2008
"The Politics and Poetics of Black Masculinity: Killer of Sheep and My Brother's Wedding." Liner notes, BFI DVD release of Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2008
The Spike Lee Reader: An Anthology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (Books and Publications: Book (Edited)) 2008
Film and theater subject editor, African American National Biography. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. New York: Oxford University Press. (Books and Publications: Book (Edited)) 2008
"1977: Movies and a Nation in Transformation." American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations. Ed. Lester Friedman. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2007
"From Mean Streets to the Gangs of New York: Ethnicity and Urban Space in the Films of Martin Scorsese." City That Never Sleeps. Ed. Murray Pomerance. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2007
Film and theater subject editor, African American National Biography Project, 2006-present. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2006
"Contemporary Black Film." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas 2nd ed. Ed. Colin Palmer. New York: Macmillan. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2005
"The L.A. School of Filmmakers." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas 2nd ed. Ed. Colin Palmer. New York: Macmillan. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2005
"An Aesthetic Appropriate to Conditions: Killer of Sheep, (Neo)Realism and the Documentary Impulse." Wide Angle 22.4 (October 1999-published June 2004): 20-41. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2004
"Baadasssss!" Cineaste XXIX.3, Summer: 42-43. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2004
"Boyz 'n the Hood Chronotope: Spike Lee, Richard Price and the Changing Authorship of Clockers." Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Ed. Robert Stam. London: Blackwell. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2004
"From Homeboy to Baby Boy: Masculinity and Violence in the Films of John Singleton." New Hollywood Violence. Ed. Steven Schneider. London: Manchester University Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2004
"City Spaces and City Times: Bakhtin's Chronotope and the Urbanscape in Contemporary African American Film." Screening the City. Ed. Mark Shiel. London: Verso. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2003
"Doyle's Law: An Interview With David Benioff." Cineaste XXVIII.3, Summer: 8-10. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2003
"The Quintessential New York and Global Citizen: An Interview With Spike Lee." Cineaste XXVIII.3, Summer: 4-6. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2003
Black City Cinema: Visualizing African American Urban Experiences in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2003
"Ghetto Supastar: Warren Beatty's Bulworth and the Politics of Race and Space." Literature/Film Quarterly 30.4, Fall: 287-93. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2002
"Which Way to the Promised Land?: Clockers and the Legacy of the African American City." African American Review 32.2, Summer: 263-79. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2001
"African American Cinema." Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory. Eds. Philip Simpson and Roberta Pearson. London: Routledge. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2000
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Cinema Unbound: Quentin Tarantino's Many Miscegenations in DJANGO UNCHAINED" presented at "From Cinematic Past to Fast Forward Present: D.W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION," a centennial symposium, hosted by The Black Film Center/Archive, Indiana University. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2015
SCMS 2015 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, March 2014. Panel Participant: ? ?We Don?t Need to Dream No More. We Got Real Estate?: The Wire, Urban Development, and the Frustrations of the American Dream.? (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2015
"Teaching American Film History" workshop. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Chicago. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2013
"Teaching Women in Film" workshop. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Chicago. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2013
"Imagining and Re-Imagining a Promised Land: The Gangster Genre and Harlem's Mythic Past, Present, and Future." University of Georgia. Athens, Ga. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
Participant, "Revisiting The Boys in the Band" Workshop. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Boston. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2012
Participant, "Teaching the City Film" Workshop. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Boston. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2012
"Black Directors." Black Cinema Now Conference, hosted by New York University's Institute of African American Affairs. March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Filming a Saint: A Roundtable Discussion of Margarethe Von Trotta's 'Vision.'" The Medieval Studies Certificate Program and The Pearl Kibre Medieval Study, CUNY Graduate Center. New York, Oct. 28. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Harlem's 'Social Problems': The Shift From the Gangster to the Gang Member in Post-War Harlem Film." Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Los Angeles, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2010
"Living in the City: Harlem's Representational Turn Towards 'Marketable Shock.'" The Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. November. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Sirens, Screams and Static: Polyphony in BUSH MAMA and Other L.A. Rebellion Films." Institute for Cinema and Culture, University of Iowa. April. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Imagining and Re-Imagining a Promised Land: The Gangster Genre and Harlem's Mythic Past, Present and Future." Sustaining Cities: Urban Lost and Found. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. April 17-19. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2009
"Faded Glory: Oscar Micheaux and the Pre-War Black Independent Cinema." Hosted by Columbia University and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Feb. 6-7. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"Race and Place" panel chair. SCMS 2008 Annual Conference. Philadelphia, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"Imagining a Promised Land: (The Historical Precedents of) Recent African American Films Set in Harlem." International Symposium on Visual Culture and the Urban Environment: Globalization and Violence. University of London Institute in Paris and Northern Illinois University, January. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
"Numbers Runners and New Negroes: Harlem Gangsters in the 1930s." Global Gangsters: Crime and International Cinema, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. October. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
"Rethinking Feminist Film and Media Studies" panel chair. SCMS 2007 Annual Conference. Chicago, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007
"African American Aesthetics and the City: Picturing the Black Bourgeoisie in Harlem." CUNY Film and Lecture Series. CUNY Graduate Center. New York, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"Crash" panelist. Newark Black Film Festival. Newark, N.J., June. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song" panel chair. ASA 2006 Annual Conference. Oakland, Calif., October. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006
"Writing Film History" respondent. Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation. Columbia University. New York, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
Professional Leadership
Member, editorial board, Cinema Journal.
2013-present (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2016
Jury member, New York Region, Student Academy Awards. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2013
Chair, First Book Award Committee, Society for Cinema and Media Studies. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2012
Chairwoman, Research Committee, University Faculty Senate, 2010-12. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2012
Judge, Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime-writing. International Association of Crime Writers. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2012
Member, Advisory Committee, Film Studies Certificate Program, CUNY Graduate Center. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2012
Reviewer, Dissertation Completion Awards, American Council of Learned Societies. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2012
Chairwoman, Development Advisory Committee, Society for Cinema and Media Studies. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2011
Chairwoman, Development Advisory Committee, Society for Cinema and Media Studies. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2010
SCMS representative to ACLS, three-year term. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2008
Treasurer, Society for Cinema and Media Studies. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2008
Acting coordinator, Film Studies Certificate Program, CUNY Graduate Center. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007
Program Committee, SCMS 2007 Conference, Chicago. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007
