Associate Professor
Film & Digital Media
Contact Information:
Phone: 254.710.6061
E-mail: James_Kendrick@baylor.edu
Website: http://blogs.baylor.edu/james_kendrick
Office: Castellaw Communications Center 119
Office Hours: TBA
Mailing Address:
Dept. of Communication Studies
One Bear Place # 97368
Baylor University
Waco, TX 76798-7368
Education:
- Ph.D., Communication & Culture, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2005
- M.A., Journalism, Baylor University, 1999
- B.A., English, Baylor University, 1996
Background:
James Kendrick is an associate professor in the Film and Digital Media Division of the Department of Communication Studies at Baylor University, where he teaches classes on film theory/aesthetics, the history of motion pictures, media and society, violence in the media, and horror film.
He earned a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from Indiana University, Bloomington, and also holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Journalism, both from Baylor University. His primary research interests are post-Classical Hollywood film history, violence in the media, cult and horror films, media censorship and regulation, and cinema and new technologies.
He has recently published two books on screen violence: Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in 1980s American Cinema (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009) and Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre (Wallflower Press, 2009). He has also published several book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles in Film Criticism, The Velvet Light Trap, the Journal of Film and Video, and the Journal of Popular Film and Television, as well as presented papers at numerous conferences. In addition to his academic work, he is also the film and video critic for the web site Qnetwork.com (where he has written more than 2,200 feature-length reviews). He is a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the University Film and Video Association , and the Online Film Critics Society.
He lives in Waco, TX, with his wife, Cassie, who is a doctoral student in Baylor’s Psy.D. program, and their son James.
Recent publications:
- Books
- Darkness in the Bliss-Out: The Uneasy Films of Steven Spielberg. New York: Continuum, 2013. (in publication)
- Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre. Wallflower Press, London, 2009.
- Hollywood Bloodshed: Screen Violence and 1980s American Cinema. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 2009.
- Recent and Forthcoming Journal Articles/Book Chapters
- “Gore and Slasher Films: Horror in the 1980s.” Chapter in A Companion to the Horror Film, edited by Harry Benshoff. In publication at Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NH, 2013.
- “Phantom Cinema: Illuminating the Structuring Absences of Film History.” Forthcoming in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, December 2012, Vol. 30, No. 1.
- “Disturbing New Pathways: Psycho and the Priming of the Audience.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, Spring 2010, Vol. 38, No. 1.
- “A Return to the Graveyard: Notes on the Spiritual Horror Film.” Forthcoming chapter in the anthology American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium, edited by Steffen Hantke. In publication at the University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
- "Razors in the Dreamscape: Revisiting A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Slasher Film." Film Criticism, Spring 2009, Vol. 33, No. 3.
- "Representing the Unrepresentable: The Violence of 9/11 in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and Paul Greengrass' United 93." Chapter in the anthology Why We Fought: America's Wars in Film and History, edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2008.
Courses Taught:
- FDM 3351 History of Motion Pictures
- FDM 3352 History of Radio and Television
- FDM 4340 Media and Society
- FDM 4343 Film/Video Aesthetics: Theory and Criticism
- FDM 4380 Violence and the American Screen
- FDM 4396 The Horror Film
- FDM 5376 Contemporary Film Theory
Teaching/Research Interests:
- Film history
- Film and media theory
- Violence in the media
- Media censorship and regulation
- Horror film
- Cinema and new technologies
