James Kendrick
Professor, Film & Digital Media, Undergraduate Program Director
Education
Ph.D., Communication & Culture, Indiana University, Bloomington,
M.A., Journalism, Baylor University,
B.A., English, Baylor University,
Background
James Kendrick teaches classes on film theory/aesthetics, film criticism, the history of motion pictures, media and society, violence in the media, the films of Steven Spielberg, and horror films.
His primary research interests are post-Classical Hollywood film history, the films of Steven Spielberg, violence in the media, cult and horror films, media censorship and regulation, and cinema and new technologies.
He is the author of three books: Darkness in the Bliss-Out: A Reconsideration of the Films of Steven Spielberg (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in 1980s American Cinema (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), and Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre (Wallflower Press, 2009). He most recently edited the 24-chapter anthology A Companion to the Action Film (2019) for Wiley-Blackwell’s Companion series and is currently working on an book for the British Film Institute’s Film Classics series on Midnight Cowboy. He has published more than two dozen 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 many conferences.
In addition to his academic work, he is also the film critic for the website Qnetwork.com (where he has written more than 3,000 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.