Core Faculty
Program Director
Linda Belau, Ph.D.
Professor
Office: Edinburg, ELABS 238
Email: linda.belau@utrgv.edu
Profile
Dr. Linda Belau, Program Coordinator, is a Professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature (Program in Philosophy, Literature and Criticism), MA in Philosophy, and MA in English from Binghamton University. Dr. Belau is a recipient of both the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and the University Excellence in Online Teaching Award.
Dr. Belau recently published a book, Horror Television in the Age of Consumption: Binging on Fear, with Routledge (2018), as well as the following film-related articles: “Wounds of the Past: Andrei Tarkovsky and the Melancholic Imagination” in The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky (2019), “Film as Autobiographical Act: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Oedipus” in Memory Reimagined in World Cinema (2018), “Family Ties and Maternal Things: Bates Motel as Family Romance for the Post-Oedipal Era” (2017), “Melodrama, Sickness, and Paranoia: Todd Haynes and the Woman’s Film” in Film & History (co-authored with Ed Cameron, 2017), “‘Under the Floorboards of this Nation’: Trauma, Representation, and the Stain of History in 12 Years a Slave” (co-authored with Ed Cameron, 2015), and “Sublimation, Myth, and the Work of Dreams: Radical Nostalgia and Melancholic Attachment in Edipo Re” (2014).
David Anshen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Office: Edinburg, ELABS 232
Email: david.anshen@utrgv.edu
Profile
Dr. David Anshen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature from Stony Brook University.
Dr. Anshen’s related publications include “Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville: An Italian Neorealist, Science Fiction Fable about Hollywood” in Radical Fantasy: Italian Neorealism’s Afterlife in Global Cinema (2007) and “Out of the Depths and Through the Postmodern Surface: History and Class Figuration in Cameron's Titanic” in the journal CineAction (2000).
Ed Cameron, Ph.D.
Professor
Office: Edinburg, ELABS 230
Email: ed.cameron@utrgv.edu
Profile
Dr. Ed Cameron is Professor in the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies and Program Coordinator for the English BA. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature (Program in Philosophy, Literature and Criticism) and an MA in Philosophy from Binghamton University and a second MA in Humanities from San Francisco State University. He teaches “Intro to Film Studies” and courses on Film Noir, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, Japanese Cinema, Film & Narrative, and Punk Cinema.
Dr. Cameron’s film-focused publications include “‘The Thing ‘Chants Out Between Two Worlds’: Surreal Latency in the Twin Peaks Universe” (2018), “Melodrama, Sickness, and Paranoia: Todd Haynes and the Woman’s Film” in Film & History (co-authored with Linda Belau, 2017), “Harmony Korine’s ‘Break from Reality’: Spring Breakers as Candy-Colored Neon Noir” in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature (2016), ‘The Film Noir Doppelgänger: Alienation, Separation, Anxiety,” in Interdisciplinary Humanities (2016) “‘Under the Floorboards of this Nation’: Trauma, Representation, and the Stain of History in 12 Years a Slave” (co-authored with Linda Belau, 2015), and “From Symptom to Sublimation: Fellini’s 8 ½ and the Circuit of Art Cinema” in Italica (2015).
David Bennett Carren
Associate Professor
Office: Edinburg, ELABN 148
Email: david.carren@utrgv.edu
Profile
David Bennett Carren is Associate Professor in the Theatre Department. He earned his BA in Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and his Master of Fine Arts at Spalding University. He has directed, written or produced more than 200 films and television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stargate, SG1.
His recognition as a screenwriter includes a First Place in the New York Television and Film Festival, a Grand Prize from the StoryPro Awards, a Writer’s Guild Award Nomination, finalist honors at the Austin Film Festival on multiple projects, and Platinum, Gold and Bronze Remi Awards. As a director, he earned a Silver Palm at the Mexico Film Festival for his feature film, The Red Queen. Medallion Books published David’s first novel, No Power on Earth, Stonelock Pictures optioned his second novel, I've Killed Mother, and his short story “If She Dies” was published in Twisted Tales before David adapted it as an episode of The New Twilight Zone.