Williams, Tami M.

Associate Professor

Tami M. Williams (PhD, UCLA) is Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and President of Domitor, the International Society for the Study of Early Cinema. Her books as author/editor/coeditor include Provenance and Early Cinema (2021), 2020 CNC Prix du Livre de Cinéma recipient Germaine Dulac's What is Cinema? (2019), Global Cinema Networks (2018), The Moving Image special issue, 16.1: Early Cinema and the Archives (2016), Germaine Dulac: A Cinema of Sensations (2014), and Performing New Media, 1895-1915 (2014). She has a passion for early cinema and the archive, and the diverse intersections of wordlessness, gesture, and symbolist aesthetics in the performance arts, French cinematic impressionism, and the films of global women directors. She is a founding coordinator of the paper prints pilot Media Ecology Project-Domitor-Library of Congress (MEP-D-­LOC), SCMS Silent Cinema Cultures Scholarly Interest Group, and UWM Film Studies Archive Preservation Project, a PI for the UWM Media Studies Research Collaboratory, and a board member of Women Film History International.

Education

  • Ph.D., University of California-Los Angeles, Film and Television
  • A, University of California-Los Angeles, Film and Television
  • BA, University of California-Santa Barbara, Film Studies

Courses Taught

  • ArtHistory 205 Film History I: Development of an Art, 1895-1945
  • ArtHistory 206 Film History II: Development of an Art, 1945-Present
  • English 111 Film, Television and the Internet
  • English 291 Introduction to Television Studies
  • English 293 Literature and Media: Film Noir and the Crime Novel
  • English 295 Women and Film
  • English 312 Topics in Film Studies: Cinema and Digital Culture
  • English 316 Global Cinema: Women Directors
  • English 316 Global Cinema: Hong Kong Cinema
  • English 316 Global Cinema: French New Wave
  • English 329 Film and the Novel: Adaptation
  • English 390 Classical Film Theory and Criticism
  • English 590 Contemporary Film Theory: Feminist Film Historiography
  • English 743 Intro to Film Studies: Seminar in Theory and Criticism
  • English 877 Seminar in Film Theory: Women Filmmakers

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Early Cinema and Visual Culture (pantomime, theater, dance)
  • French Film History
  • International Silent Cinema
  • Feminist Film Historiography
  • Gender Studies/Queer Aesthetics
  • Classical Film Theory
  • Cinema and Digital Culture
  • Contemporary Global Cinema

Selected Publications

. Early Cinema and the Archives 16.1.1 Ed. Williams, Tami M. University of Minnesota Press: The Moving Image. 2016.
Williams, Tami M. Germaine Dulac: A Cinema of Sensations Chicago and Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press. 2014.
. Performing New Media, 1890-1915 Ed. Williams, Tami M., Askari, Kaveh, Curtis, Scott, and Gray, Frank . New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey Press. 2014.
Williams, Tami M. “The 'Silent Arts': Modern Pantomime and the Making of an Art Cinema in Belle Époque Paris” A Companion to Early Cinema Ed. Gaudreault, André, Dulac, Nicolas, and Hidalgo, Santiago. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (2012): 99-118.
Williams, Tami M. “Toward the Development of a Modern 'Impressionist' Cinema: Germaine Dulac's La Belle Dams sans merci (1921) and the Deconstruction of the Femme Fatale Archetype” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 51.2 (2010): 404-419.