Joe Kickasola

Education

B.A. (English), B. Mus. (Vocal Performance), Covenant College
M.A., Communication (Film Directing/Editing, Regent University
Ph.D., Communication (Film Studies Concentration), Regent University

Background

Dr. Kickasola runs the Baylor in New York program, a unique internship and study program aimed at giving students the skills, networking connections, and rich life experience necessary to thrive in today's world.  He returns to Baylor for meetings, recruitment, and teaching several times a year.

His research focuses on film theory, aesthetics, and the intersection of religion and film.  He is the author of award-winning monograph The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski: The Liminal Image (Continuum, 2004), and the editor of a special issue of the journal Religions, on the theme of “Film and Lived Theology.”  Some other select publications include essays in Film Quarterly, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, and numerous anthologies focused on the cinema as it intersects with perception, philosophy, and religion.

An in-demand speaker, he has lectured to academic and popular audiences around the world, most often regarding the arts and their importance for contemporary life.  Highlights include several public conversations with the filmmaker Paul Schrader (in Atlanta, Toronto, New York City, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

A full-time professor at Baylor since 1999, he has also held a Visiting Professor of Film and Religion position at Princeton Seminary twice (2006 and 2009).  He is also a Fellow and the Secretary/Treasurer for the Society for the Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image, and Associate with the Columbia University Seminar on the Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Kickasola has directed and/or produced film and video projects for distribution and/or broadcast around the world. He lives in New York City, with his wife and two children.