Zachariah Anderson

English - Media, Cinema and Digital Studies, PhD

Achieved Degrees

  • M.A. English: Media, Cinema and Digital Studies, UW-Milwaukee, 2018;
  • B.S. Communicating Arts: Video Production, Cultural Theory, UW-Superior, 2010

Selected Publications

  • “‘True’ Crime and the Appropriation of State-Recorded Surveillance Images in American Murder: The Family Next Door (2020).” Jump Cut 62 (January 2024).
  • “Virtual Looking: Home Movies as Historical Evidence in The Future Is Behind You (Abigail Child, 2004).” Iluminace 34, no. 1 (September 2022): 73-90.
  • “Necessarily Problematic: Archival Looking in Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016).” Film Criticism 46, no. 1 (June 2022).
  • “Indictment and Possibility in Ken Jacobs’ Star Spangled to Death.” Found Footage 5 (March 2019): 68-77.

Interests

  • Documentary Studies,
  • Archival or Found Footage Filmmaking Practices,
  • Body-Worn Cameras and Police Surveillance,
  • Images as Historical Evidence

Academic Awards

  • Distinguished Dissertator Fellowship, 2023-2024;
  • James A. Sappenfield Fellowship, 2020-2021;
  • Chancellor's Award, 2017-2018

Recent Research Presentations

  • “Looking at Police Body-Worn Camera Footage as Documentary Evidence.” Mass Culture Workshop, University of Chicago, IL, December 2023.
  • “Found Footage in the Post-Truth Era: Re-evaluating the Evidentiary Role of Archival Images in The Dead Nation (2017).” Visible Evidence, Frankfurt, HE, December 2021.
  • “Home Movies as Historical Evidence in Abigail Child’s The Future is Behind You (2004).” Migrating Archives of Reality, Prague, CZ, May 2021.
  • “Unstable Historical Evidence: The Battle of the Somme (1916) and the Contested Meanings of Archival War Images.” Society for Cinema & Media Studies, Seattle, WA, March 2019.

Teaching Experience

  • Film Studies 206: History of Film II: Development of an Art, 1945-Present
  • Film Studies 205: History of Film I: Development of an Art, 1895-1945
  • Film Studies 111: Introduction to Entertainment Arts: Film, Television, Internet
  • English 102: College Writing and Research
  • English 101: Introduction to College Writing