This fall, the University of Minnesota Morris welcomes Diane Negra as its Elizabeth S. Blake Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Liberal Arts (DVPLA).
Negra is professor of film studies and screen culture, as well as head of film studies at University College Dublin. She is the author, editor or co-editor of 13 books. A dual citizen academic trained at the University of Texas at Austin, Negra has been based in the United Kingdom and Ireland since 2002.
Negra will teach a course, "Chick Flicks," which considers Hollywood's depiction of women. Additionally, she will give two public lectures as well as participate in other campus events. The first, "In Order to Serve You Better: Affect, Authority, and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service," is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 16.
ABOUT NEGRA
Diane Negra is professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture at University College Dublin. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, she has held guest professorship appointments at Brown University, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Reims, Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and Tel Aviv University. Her work in media, gender and cultural studies has been widely influential and recognized with a range of research awards and fellowships, including an award from the Government of Japan that led to a lecture tour in that country.
In 2022, Negra was elected to a three-year term as co-chair of the Interacademy Partnership. She is Chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s Working Group on Culture and Heritage and has served on the Interacademy Partnership Working Group on Predatory Journals and Conferences. In 2016 she was appointed by the US Ambassador to Ireland to the Irish Fulbright Commission Board. In 2019 she was elected Chair of the Commission.
Negra’s work is increasingly animated by a sense of concern about the ways that neoliberal technologization is diminishing our common humanity. She is in the early stages of a book on bureaucracy, civility, and rage in the service economy whose working title is “In Order to Serve You Better:" Affect, Authority and Antagonism in The New Cultures of Customer Service. Her other current project is Interregnum: Hollywood Film Between the Financial Crisis and Covid-19.
ABOUT THE ELIZABETH S. BLAKE DISTINGUISHED VISITING PROFESSORSHIP
The Elizabeth S. Blake Distinguished Visiting Professorship in the Liberal Arts is held on a short-term basis by a faculty member from another college or university who is a recognized authority in his or her field. It is awarded in rotation to each of UMN Morris's four academic divisions: humanities, science and mathematics, social science, and education. Under the vision of Blake, professor emeritus who served as vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean at UMN Morris from 1979 until 1995, the DVPLA was created to celebrate and strengthen the success of the University of Minnesota Morris as an undergraduate liberal arts campus and to contribute to its continuing quest for high distinction in baccalaureate education.