Mask, Mia

Visiting Professor of Cinema Studies (Fall 11; Spring 12)

209 Fisher-Bennett Hall

Website

Mia Mask, Associate Professor of Film, received her Ph.D. from New York University. Before coming to Vassar, she taught Film Studies at The College of Staten Island-CUNY, graduate Media Studies at The New School, and Film History at Tufts University, where she was a Multicultural Teaching Fellow. At Vassar College Ms. Mask teaches African American cinema, documentary film history, seminars on special topics such as the horror film, and auteurs like Spike Lee.  She also teaches feminist film theory, African national cinemas, and various genre courses. She is the author of Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film, published by University of Illinois Press. Divas on Screen was featured on the radio program "Tell Me More." Formerly an assistant editor and regular contributor at Cineaste magazine, she has written film reviews and covered festivals for IndieWire.com, The Village Voice, Abafazi: Simmons College Journal, Film Quarterly, Time Out New York, Brooklyn Woman, and The Poughkeepsie Journal print and online editions. Her criticism was anthologized in Best American Movie Writing, 1999.  In the spring of 2003, she was a Visiting Professor of Film Studies at Yale University. She has twice been a visiting scholar at New York University. Her scholarly essays are published in the African American National Biography, Screen Stars of the 1990s, Film and Literature, and American Cinema of the 1970s. She is editing an anthology entitled Black American Cinema Reconsidered. Her television interviews include appearances on "The Full Nelson" and "American Movie Classics." In 2006, 2007 and 2008 she served at the Institute of International Education as a member of the National Screening Committee assembled to select Fulbright scholars.  Her cultural commentary can be heard on National Public Radio.