
Anna Siomopoulos
Associate Professor, English and Media StudiesPh.D., M.A., University of Chicago, 2003
BA, Cornell University, 1991
Office: Adamian Academic Center 073 | 781.891. 2858 | asiomopoulos@bentley.edu


Bio
Anna Siomopoulos has published articles on American film and culture in many academic journals, such as Cinema Journal, Camera Obscura, The Moving Image, Film History, and Arizona Quarterly, and she is the author of Hollywood Melodrama and the New Deal: Public Daydreams (Routledge, 2012).
Teaching Interests
Hollywood Film; Documentary Film; Experimental Film; Gender Studies
Research Interests
Hollywood Cinema; U.S. Social and Cultural History; Political Theory; Theories of Mass Culture
Awards and Honors
2017, Finalist, Boston Theater Marathon
2016, Finalist, Screenplay to Production Contest, Boston International film Festival
2015, Second Runner-Up in Feature Screenplay Category, Comedy, Woods Hole Film Festival
2015, Summer Research Grant, Bentley University
2013, Faculty Affairs Committee Grant, Bentley University
2013, Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award, Bentley University
2012, Summer Research Grant, Bentley University
2011, Faculty Affairs Committee Grant, Bentley University
2010, Summer Research Grant, Bentley University
2009, Summer Research Grant, Bentley University
2008, Summer Research Grant, Bentley University
2007, Faculty Affairs Committee Grant, Bentley College
2007, Service Learning Development Grant, Bentley College
2007, Summer Research Grant, Bentley College
2007, Valente Center for Arts and Sciences Fellowship, 2007-2008, Bentley College
2006, Dean's Fund for International Travel Grant, Bentley College
2006, Faculty Affairs Committee Grant, Bentley College
2006, Publication Award, Bentley College
2006, Summer Grant, Bentley College
2005, Provost's Grant for International Travel, Ithaca College
2005, Publication Award, Bentley College
2004, Media Arts Technical Assistance Grant , New York State Experimental Television Center
2003, Tillotson Travel Grant, University of Chicago
2001, Du Pont Scholar-in-Residence, Sweet Briar College
1999, Walter and Carol Blair Dissertation Fellowship in American Literature, 1999-2000, University of Chicago
1993, Ruth Murray Gender Studies Prize, University of Chicago
1991, Century Fellowship, 1991-1995, University of Chicago
1990, Barnes Shakespeare Prize, Cornell University
Publications
Journal Article(s)
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2006). Political Theory and Melodrama Studies. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, 21 (2), 178-183.
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2006). The Birth of a Black Cinema: Race, Reception, and Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates. The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 6 (2), 111-118.
Siomopoulos, A. M., Zimmermann, P. (2006). Silent Film Exhibition and Performative Historiography: The Within Our Gates Project. The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 6 (2), 109-111.
Siomopoulos, A. M., An, G. (2006). An Interview with Fe Nunn. The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, 6 (2), 132-135.
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2002). 'The 'Eighth o' Style': Black Nationalism, the New Deal, and The Emperor Jones. Arizona Quarterly, 58.3 (Fall), 57-81.
Siomopoulos, A. M. (1999). Entertaining Ethics: Technology, Mass Culture, and American Intellectuals of the 1930s. Film History, 11.1, 45-54.
Siomopoulos, A. M. (1999). 'I Didn't Know Anyone Could be So Unselfish': Liberal Empathy, the Welfare State, and King Vidor's Stella Dallas. Cinema Journal, 38.4 (Summer), 3-23.
Books
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2012). Hollywood Melodrama and the New Deal: Public Daydreams.
New York, NY: Routledge Press.
Book Chapters
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2016). Embodying the State: Federal Architecture and Masculine Transformation in Hollywood Films of the New Deal Era.
In Iwan Morgan (Eds.), Hollywood and the Great Depression: American Film, Politics and Society in the 1930s (pp. 198-215). Edinburgh: . Edinburgh University Press
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2010). Cult-ural Learnings from Borat: A Model for the Standardized Cult Film.
In John Cline and Rob Weiner (Eds.), From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse: Highbrow and Lowbrow Transgression in Cinema's First Century (pp. 208-220). Lanham, MD: . Scarecrow Press
Book Reviews
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2006).
[Review of the book What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images by Mitchell, W.J.T]. Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism.
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2004).
[Review of the book Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America: 1945-1957 by Smoodin, Eric]. The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.
Conference Proceeding(s)
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2006). The Flow of Consumer Citizenship: The New Deal, Hollywood Cinema, and Pare Lorentz' The River (1937). , Film and History League Conference: The Documentary Tradition.
Other(s)
Siomopoulos, A. M. (2003). Public Daydreams: Consumer Citizenship and Hollywood Cinema of the 1930s.
Forthcoming
Conference Presentations
Pennel,
R., Abbott,
T., Stuckey,
K., Siomopoulos,
A., LeDoux,
E., Medden,
S. (2019).
"Teaching Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Workshop."
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2017).
""They Do Not Get to Take My Marriage": The Whistleblower Couple in Hollywood Film."
Presented at the
Avanca Cinema Conference,
Avanca, Portugal.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2016).
"“They Do Not Get to Take My Marriage”: The Whistleblower Couple in Hollywood Film."
Presented at the
Liverpool Hope Univeristy's
Theorising the Popular Conference,
Liverpool, UK.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2015).
"Documenting Emotion: Hollywood Melodrama, Consumer Citizenship, and Pare Lorentz’s The River."
Presented at the
CINE CRI's
International Film Studies and Cinematic Arts Conference,
Istanbul, Turkey.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2015).
"Juarez, Lincoln, and FDR: Welfare State Ideology and Hollywood Films of the 1930s."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies's
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference,
Montreal, Canada.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2014).
"Defending Dark Passengers: Narrative Strategies and Graphic Violence in ‘Quality’ Television Series."
Presented at the
Common Ground Publishing's
New Directions in the Humanities Conference,
Madrid, Spain.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2013).
"Embodying the State: Federal Architecture and Masculine Transformation in Hollywood Films of the New Deal Era."
Presented at the
Association of American Geographers's
Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting,
Los Angeles, California.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2013).
"“I Should Hate to See Our Country Endangered by My Underwear”: The Politics of Gender in Ninotchka and Comrade X."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies's
Society for Cinema And Media Studies Conference,
Chicago, Ilinois.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2012).
"Melodramatic Flow: Hollywood, the New Deal, and the Documentaries of Pare Lorentz."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies's
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Boston, MA.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2011).
"Citizen Angels and Alien Ghosts: Supernatural African-American Subjects in The Green Pastures and The Emperor Jones."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies's
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
New Orleans, LA.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2010).
"Cultural Learnings from Borat: A Model for the Standardized Cult Film."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies's
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Los Angeles, CA.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2008).
"Embodying the State: Federal Architecture and Masculine Transformation in Hollywood Films of the 1930s."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Philadelphia, PA.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2007).
"Publicizing Privacy: The New Deal, Mass Media and Hollywood Films of the Depression Era."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Chicago, IL.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2006).
"The Flow of Consumer Citizenship: The New Deal, Hollywood Cinema, and Pare Lorentz' The River (1937)."
Presented at the
Film and History League Conference: The Documentary Tradition,
Dallas, TX.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2006).
"Homo Sacer and Welfare State Sovereignty: The Convergence of FDR and the Forgotten Man in Hollywood Films of the Depression Era."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Vancouver, BC.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2005).
"Passions of Place: Gendered Spaces of Suffering in Hollywood Melodrama."
Presented at the
American Studies Association Conference,
Washington, D.C..
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2005).
"The Doubleness of Indemnity: Film Noir and the Paternalist Welfare State."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
London, England.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M., Zimmermann,
P., An,
G., Katsumata,
R. (2004).
"Arctic Requiem: A Multimedia and Musical Re-conception of Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North, commissioned live, original musical score for Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922)."
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2004).
"Inaugural Black History Month Lecture: The Birth of a Black Cinema: Race, Reception, and Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates."
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2003).
"Hollywood and the Refeudalization of 1930s America: The Asian Warlord, the Black Emperor, and the New Deal."
Presented at the
Blacks and Asians in the Making of the Modern World,
Boston University.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2003).
"Scarface Over the White House: The New Deal and the Political Gangster Film."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference,
Minneapolis, MN.
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (2001).
"'Public Daydreams': Consumer Citizenship and the Mob Violence Film of the 1930s."
Presented at the
Society for Cinema Studies Conference,
Washington, D.C..
Siomopoulos,
A.
M. (1994).
"The Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem Public: Reading The Emperor Jones Across Class Lines."
Presented at the
Approaches to American Mass Culture(s) Graduate Student Conference,
University of Chicago.
Artistic and Professional Performances and Exhibits
Out of the Fire (2016)
Telling It Like It Is - Screenplay
Within Our Gates: Revisited and Remixed - We were invited by Ithaca College to research, write, produce and perform a live, original musical score for Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920), with the Fe Nunn Jazz Quartet and a spoken word performance.
Arctic Requiem: A Multimedia and Musical Re-conception of Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922) - We were commissioned by the International Flaherty Film Seminar to research, write, produce, and perform a live, original musical score for Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922).
Arctic Requiem: A Multimedia and Musical Re-conception of Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922) - We were commissioned by MOMA to perform a live, original musical score for a screening of Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922).
Service
Department Service
Committee Chair for EMS Online Teaching Group, 2020 - Present
Committee Member for Creative Writing Student Reading Series , 2018 - Present
Committee Chair for EMS Research and Pedagogy Committee, 2018 - Present
Committee Member for EMS Strategic Planning Committee, 2018 - Present
Committee Member for Evaluation Committee, 2012 - Present
Committee Member for Search Committee for EMS Visiting Lecturers, 2018 - 2018
Committee Chair for EMS Research Committee, 2016 - 2018
Committee Chair for Search Committee, Committee Chair, 2016 - 2016
Evaluation Committee Co-Chair, 2014 - 2016
Committee Member for Media and Culture Committee, 2005 - 2016
Committee Member for Summer Research Grant Application Evaluation Committee, 2013 - 2013
Committee Member for Literature and Film Committee, 2009 - 2012
Committee Member for Search Committee for ESOL Faculty Position, 2012 - 2012
Committee Member for Search Committee for Media Studies Faculty Position, 2007 - 2008
Committee Chair for Colloquium Dinner Committee, 2006 - 2006
University Service
Committee Member for Academic Integrity Council, 2020 - Present
Committee Member for Academic Integrity Hearing Committee, 2018 - Present
Coordinator for Media Arts and Society Liberal Studies Major , 2018
Committee Co-Chair with Kristin Sorensen for International Film Series Board, 2006
Committee Member for Faculty Affairs Committee, 2018 - 2019
Committee Member for Capstone Project Review Committee, 2018 - 2018
Committee Member for Faculty Affairs Committee , 2015 - 2016
Associate Director for Valente Center for Arts and Sciences, 2014 - 2015
Committee Member for Valente Center Advisory Board, 2009 - 2015
Associate Director for Valente Center for Arts and Sciences, 2012 - 2013
Committee Member for Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee, 2012 - 2013
Committee Member for Faculty Senate, 2012 - 2013
Committee Member for Faculty Affairs Committee, 2006 - 2012
Committee Chair for Faculty Affairs Committee, 2012 - 2012
Professional Service
Reviewer, Book for New York University Press, 2013 - 2013
Committee Member for Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, 2011 - 2012
Reviewer, Book for Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2010 - 2010
Reader of Honors Thesis for Brandeis University Honors Thesis Committee, 2010 - 2010