All People

Tami Williams

  • Associate Professor, English and Film Studies
  • Plan H Coordinator, English

Education

  • PhD, University of California-Los Angeles, Film and Television
  • MA, University of California-Los Angeles, Film and Television
  • BA, University of California-Santa Barbara, Film Studies

Teaching Interests

 

  • Archive Studies
  • Film Adaptation
  • Film History
  • Film Theory
  • Film and the Other Arts
  • Film Movements
  • Transnational Cinemas
  • Women Directors
  • Theories of Authorship
  • Cinema and Digital Culture

Research Interests

  • Archive Studies
  • Early Cinema 
  • Late Silent Cinema
  • Film and the Other Arts (music, dance, theater, painting)
  • French Cinema
  • Global Women Directors

Biographical Sketch

Tami Williams (Ph.D., UCLA) is Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at UW-Milwaukee, the first woman President of Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema, Treasurer-Elect for the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, and board member of Women Film History International.  A specialist in 20th-century European moving image history and intermediality, she is passionate about silent cinema, French film, gender and film authorship, global art cinema, and digital media culture. She is co-founder of the Media Ecology Project-Domitor-Library of Congress (MEP-D-LOC) paper prints initiative, the SCMS Silent Cinema Cultures - Scholarly Interest Group, the UWM Film Studies Archive Preservation Project, and Graduate Coordinator for UWM Media, Cinema and Digital Studies. 

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

Williams, Tami. Crafts, Trades, and Techniques of Early Cinema. Co-editor with Ian Christie, Priska Morrissey, Louis Pelletier, Valentine Robert, and Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan. E-book. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Publishing, 2024.

Williams, Tami. Provenance and Early Cinema. Co-editor with Joanne Bernardi, Paolo Cherchi Usai and Joshua Yumibe. University of Indiana Press, February 2021. 

Williams, Tami.  Germaine Dulac’s Qu’est-ce que le cinema? /What is Cinema ? Co-editor with Clément Lafite. Paris: Éditions Light Cone, September 2019.

International Book Award: 2020 CNC French National Film Center annual Film Book Award.  

Spanish Edition : Germaine Dulac’s ¿Qué es el cine?  (What is Cinema ?) Barcelona, Spain: Wunderhammer/Collección Aurea, September 2025.

Williams, Tami. Global Cinema Networks. Co-editor with Elena Gorfinkel. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, July 2018.

Williams, Tami. Early Cinema and the Archives. Guest editor. Special Issue, The Moving Image, 16.1. Spring 2016. Journal of Association of Moving Image Archivists. U. Minnesota Press, 2016.

Williams, Tami. Germaine Dulac: A Cinema of Sensations.  Series: Women and Film History International. University of Illinois Press, 2014. 

Williams, Tami. Performing New Media, 1890-1915. Co-editor with Scott Curtis, Frank Gray, et al. New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey. Distributor: Indiana University Press, 2014.

ARTICLES

Williams, Tami. “Al voltant de Germaine Dulac. El cinema de Marie-Anne Colson-Malleville.” Filmoteca de Catalunya. Barcelona, Spain. February 4 and 5, 2026.

Williams, Tami. “Germaine Dulac: Cinematic Sensations in the House of Dreams.” Retrospective: Germaine Dulac. Je n’ai plus rien. 16.10.25 -22.02.26. Catalogue. Barcelona, Spain: Museu Tàpies, 2025. p. 15-18.

Williams, Tami. “Symbolist Impressions: Modern Theater, Germaine Dulac, and the Making of an Art Cinema in Belle Epoque France (or the False Ideal of the Cinema against Theater).” Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema. Ed. Charlie Keil and Rob King. Oxford University Press, 2024. p. 251-279.

Williams, Tami. “Introduction” (bilingual). Crafts, Trades, and Techniques of Early Cinema. Co-editor with Ian Christie, et al. E-book. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Publishing, 2024. p. 1-13 (English), p. 14-26 (and French).

Williams, Tami. “Cinema’s First Nasty Women.” Journal of Film Preservation. n. 108, April 2023. pp. 169-172. (DVD Review of award-winning 4- disc box set : 99 short and feature films, 11 video introductions, and a 60-pg. booklet.) 

Williams, Tami. “Introduction: Provenance and Early Cinema: From Preserving and Collecting to Circulation and Repurposing” Co-authored with Joanne Bernardi, Paolo Cherchi Usai, and Joshua Yumibe. Provenance and Early Cinema. Indiana University Press, February 2021, p. 3-20.

Williams, Tami. “Epilogue: 24 Frames: Regarding the Past and Future of Global Cinema.” Global Cinema Networks. Co-edited witjh Elena Gorfinkel. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, July 2018. p. 244-250.

Williams, Tami. “Guest Editor’s Foreword: Early Cinema and the Archives,” The Moving Image, 16.1, special issue. Spring 2016. Early Cinema and the Archives. ed. Tami Williams. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. p. ix-xv.

Williams, Tami. “Dulac’s Écrits (Foreword)” Writings on Cinema: Germaine Dulac (1919-1937). Paris, France. Paris expérimental Eyewash Books Collection, Feb. 5, 2021, p. 15-17.

Williams, Tami. “Germaine Dulac’s ‘What is Cinema?’ A Rediscovery and Reconstruction.”/ “Qu’est-ce que le cinéma ?” de Germaine Dulac: Redécouverte et reconstruction.’ Co-authored with Clément Lafite. Germaine Dulac’s Qu’est-ce que le cinema? /What is Cinema ? Paris: Éditions Light Cone, September 2019.

Williams, Tami. “Two Dollar Movie, Part 3, Caroline Chérie (1968).” LOLA online film journal. eds. Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu. (International Film Critics.) Issue 7 (November 2016): Ages. DOI: http://www.lolajournal.com/7/index.html

“The ‘Silent’ Arts: Modern Pantomime and the Making of an Art Cinema in Belle Époque Paris.” A Companion to Early Cinema. ed. André Gaudreault, Nicolas Dulac, Santiago Hidalgo. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. p. 99-118

“Toward the Development of a Modern 'Impressionist' Cinema: Germaine Dulac's La Belle Damssans merci (1921) and the Deconstruction of the Femme Fatale Archetype.” Framework: TheJournal of Cinema and Media. v. 51, n. 2. Fall 2010. p. 404-419.