Dahlia Schweitzer
Education
BA, Wesleyan University
MA, Art Center College of Design
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
2023-2024 FIT Faculty Excellence Award
Biography
Dahlia Schweitzer writes about film, television, music, gender, identity, and everything in between. She studied at Wesleyan University, lived and worked in New York and Berlin, and then moved to Los Angeles to complete her graduate degrees at the Art Center College of Design and UCLA. Dahlia Schweitzer’s latest book, Haunted Homes (Rutgers University Press, 2021), explores the ways haunted homes have become a prime stage for dramatizing anxieties about family, gender, race, and economic collapse. Her previous books include L. A. Private Eyes (2019), Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World (2018), Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer: Another Kind of Monster (2014). In addition to her books, Dahlia has essays in publications including Cinema Journal, Journal of Popular Film and Television, Jump Cut, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and The Journal of Popular Culture. Regardless of the topic—serial killers, private detectives, or even zombies—all of her writing engages directly with questions of self versus other, private versus public space, examining depictions of gender, identity, and race and what they mean about our changing world.
Research Interests
film; television; genre fictions; the politics of representation; race, gender, and sexuality in media
Selected Publications
Books
Haunted Homes, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2021.
L. A. Private Eyes, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018
Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer: Another Kind of Monster, Bristol: Intellect Press, 2014.
Articles and Book Chapters
"Dismal Setbacks and Stunning Breakthroughs: A Look at Pam Grier's Career and How It Changed Hollywood," Gender in Action Movies, ed. Steven Gerrard, Emerald Publishing, 2022.
"Spinning Terror on TV: How The Grid Taught Us What to Fear," Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century, ed. Elena Caoduro, Karen Randell, Karen Ritzenhoff, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
"The Master: The Strain," Monsters: A Companion, ed. Simon Bacon, Peter Lang, 2020.
"Why Office Killer Matters," Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre, ed. Alison Peirse, Rutgers University Press, 2020.
"The New Face of Fear: How Pandemics and Terrorism Reinvent Terror (and Heroes) in the TwentyFirst Century," New Perspectives on the War Film, ed. Clementine Tholas, Karen Ritzenhoff, and Janis Goldie, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
"How iZombie Rethinks the Zombie Paradigm," Gender in Horror Television, ed. Steven Gerrard, Emerald Publishing, 2019.
"Pushing Contagion: How Government Agencies Shape Portrayals of Disease," in The Journal of Popular Culture, 50.3, 445-465, 2017.
"Having a Moment and a Dream: Precious, Paris is Burning, and the Necessity of Fantasy in Everyday Life," Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 34.3 (2017): 243-258.
"When Terrorism Met The Plague: How 9/11 Impacted the Outbreak Narrative," Cinema Journal, 56.1 (2016): 118-123.
"Going Viral in a World Gone Global: How Contagion Reinvents the Outbreak Narrative," The Last Midnight: Critical Essays on Apocalyptic Narratives in Millennial Media, ed. Leisa A. Clark, Amanda Firestone, and Mary F. Pharr, McFarland Press, 2016.
"The Mindy Project: Or Why ‘I’m The Mary, You’re The Rhoda’ Is the RomComSitCom’s Most Revealing Accusation," Journal of Popular Film and Television, 43.2 (2015): 63-69.
"Opening the Body in Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer," Jump Cut, Summer 2010.
"Who is Missing in Bunny Lake?" Jump Cut, Summer 2010.
"Striptease: The Art of Spectacle and Transgression," The Journal of Popular Culture, 34.1 (2000): 65-75.
Conferences and Presentations
"Home is Where the Danger Lies: How Haunted Home Narratives Personify Violence Against Women," Console-ing Passions (CP), Orlando, Florida, Jun. 23-25, 2022.
Plenary Talk: "The Walking Diseased: Zombies, Viruses, and the Outbreak Narrative," Theorizing Zombiism, Gothenburg, Sweden, Jul. 29-31, 2021.
"The Ghost Down the Street: How (and Why) Haunted Homes Have Invaded Hollywood," Utopia & Dystopia: Conference on the Fantastic in Media Entertainment, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 27-28, 2021.
"Racism, Horror, and the Haunted Home: How the American Dream Became the American Nightmare," Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Virtual Event, Mar. 17-21, 2021.
"From Marlowe to Mars: Tracing the Evolution of the Private Eye," SCMS, Seattle, WA, Mar. 13-17, 2019.
"Why the Lady Cannot be a Dick: On Private Eyes and the Pervasive Dominance of the Single White Man," CP, Bournemouth, UK, Jul. 11-13, 2018.
"How iZombie Reinvents the Zombie Paradigm," CP, Greenville, NC, Jul. 27–29, 2017.
"When Terrorism Met The Plague: How 9/11 Impacted the Outbreak Narrative," SCMS, Atlanta, GA, Mar. 30-Apr. 3, 2016.
"War Beyond the Battlefield: Gender, Bodies, and Bioterror," panel organizer and chair, SCMS, Atlanta, GA, March 30-April 3, 2016.
"The Walking Diseased: Zombies, Viruses, and a New Kind of Dystopia," Film & History Annual Conference, Madison, WI, Nov. 5-8, 2015.
"Contagious Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, and the Outbreak Narrative," Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference, Riverside, CA, May 21-23, 2015.
"When Viral Pandemics Met Economic Globalization in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion: A Hollywood Not-in-Love Story," SCMS, Montreal, Canada, Mar. 25-29, 2015.
"Gender and Genre in Office Killer," New York University’s Monstrous Media Conference, New York, NY, Feb. 14-15.
Awards
Collegium of University Teaching Fellows Fellowship, UCLA, 2017-2018
Teshome Gabriel Award for the Study of Film and Social Change, 2016
Jack K. Sauter Award for Artistic Merit in Television Critical Studies, 2015
Joel Siegel Fellowship for Academic Merit and Artistic Talent, 2014
Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA, 2017-2018
Executive Board Award for Academic and Artistic Merit, UCLA, 2015
Graduate Student Research Mentorship, UCLA, 2014
Courses
- FI 111 Introduction to Film
- FI 222 History of Film, 1960-Present
- FI 321 Film Theory and Criticism, An Introduction
- FI 203 African American Film Culture
- FI 208 Film Genres: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World
- FI 209 History of American Television
- FI 331 Film Genres: Crime Stories