Dr. Vincent Bohlinger

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Vince Bohlinger
Department, Office, or School
Department of English
Film Studies Program
Council of 香港六合论坛
  • Professor

Biography

I started at 香港六合论坛 in 2006 and have taught a wide range of courses on film history, theory, analysis, and production. I am particularly interested in questions of style鈥攈ow and why a film looks and sounds the way it does. My principal area of research has long been Soviet and Post-Soviet film, but Russia鈥檚 full-scale attack on Ukraine has ignited my attention toward contemporary Ukrainian cinema. Other interests include鈥攂ut certainly are not limited to鈥攄ocumentary, art cinema, experimental filmmaking, film genres, American and international cinema, and The Golden Girls.

I am currently working on a book titled Toward a Second Utopia: Soviet Film Style between Montage and Socialist Realism, 1928-1936. This project examines changes in the content, look, and sound of Soviet films during the early years of Stalin. As each Soviet republic operated its own film studios, I consider the films from these different republics to be distinctive national cinemas. I study how technological developments such as sound and color鈥攃ompounded with domestic and international influence and competition鈥攕hifted aesthetic norms within the Soviet Union. This research has been based on archival documents and films found in and around Moscow, but Covid and then Russia鈥檚 war complicated this work and has led me to explore for materials in countries such as Georgia and Armenia. I also have plans to coedit a volume of collected essays on Soviet-era movie stars along with much, much more work on Ukraine. 

I have been involved in a number of activities on campus鈥攅specially with the faculty union and College Council, which I chaired for four years. I was the long-time advisor for the Ocean State/香港六合论坛 Film Society and am currently a co-advisor for the Asian Student Association. I am also 香港六合论坛鈥檚 Fulbright Program Advisor, for which I was selected by Fulbright to be one of the inaugural class of national Program Advisor mentors. I am committed to international education, and I encourage students to seriously consider applying for a . We鈥檝e had a Fulbright winner for three years in a row!

My leisure mostly involves my work: film and television. I also enjoy word games, carbs, gardening, and kayaking鈥攁ll preferably done alongside my dog.

Education

B.A., Johns Hopkins University

M.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

Selected Publications

Edited Work

鈥溾 coedited with Yuliya V. Ladygina, KinoKultura 81 (July 2023). [33 essays and 4 filmmaker interviews]

鈥溾 coedited with Olga Blackledge, Joshua First, and Yuliya V. Ladygina, KinoKultura 77 (July 2022). [39 essays and 5 filmmaker interviews]

Articles and Chapters

鈥淐ommercialism and the Quotidian鈥 [On Andy Warhol Eating a Hamburger from 66 Scenes from America (J酶rgen Leth, 1981)], Short Film Studies 10, no. 2 (2020): 141-144.

鈥Miss Mend.鈥 In Silent Features: Essays on Silent Feature-Length Films, 1914-1934, edited by Steve Neale, 164-177. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2018.

鈥,鈥 Frames 12 (December 2017).

鈥淥n Fairy Tales and the Materiality of Sand鈥 [On Zepo (C茅sar D铆az Mel茅ndez, 2014)], Short Film Studies 8, no. 1 (2017): 41-44.

鈥淓choes of The 400 Blows: Ambiguous Closure in Art Cinema鈥 [On The Beach (Dorthe Scheffmann, 1995)], Short Film Studies 7, no. 1 (2016): 67-70.

鈥淥n the Malaise and Menace of a Pencil Sharpener鈥 [On Urz膮d (Krzysztof Kie艣lowski, 1966)], Short Film Studies 5, no. 1 (April 2015): 45-48.

鈥淭he East is a delicate matter鈥: White Sun of the Desert and the Soviet Western.鈥 In (Re)Locating the Frontier: International Western Films, edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, 373-393. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2014.

鈥淪elf-Reflexivity and Historical Revision in A Moment of Innocence and The Apple.鈥 In Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mattias Frey, 125-141. London: Routledge, 2014.

鈥淭he Development of Sound Technology in the Soviet Union during the First Five-Year Plan,鈥 Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 7, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 189-205.

鈥淓ngrossing? Exciting! Incomprehensible? Boring! Audience Survey Responses to Eisenstein鈥檚 October,鈥 Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 5, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 5-27.

鈥淎rnheim on the Ontology of the Photographic Image.鈥 In Arnheim for Film and Media Studies, edited by Scott Higgins, 249-265. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Courses

ART 541 Media Aesthetics: Stop-Motion Animation
ENGL 337 Hollywood Stardom: Celebrity, Performance, Fandom
FILM 116 Introduction to Film
FILM 219W Foundations in Film Theory and Analysis
FILM 221 Film History II
FILM 262 The Afro-Brazilian Experience & Brazilian Cinema
FILM 262 Film and Representation: Cross-Cultural Projections 鈥 Asian, American, Asian-American
FILM 352 Animation: History, Theory, Practice
FILM 352 Avant-Garde & Experimental Cinema
FILM 352 Documentary
FILM 352 Melodrama
FILM 352 Melodrama & Action Films
FILM 353 African-American Cinema
FILM 353 American Film Comedy: History & Theory
FILM 353 Contemporary Chinese Cinemas: Hong Kong, Taiwan, China
FILM 353 Russian & Soviet Cinema
FILM 353 Ukrainian Cinema
FILM 373 Cinematography & Editing
FILM 375 Documentary Filmmaking
FILM 376 Experimental Filmmaking
FILM 450 Classical Film Theory
FILM 450 Film Style
FILM 454W Contemporary Film and Theory
FYS 100 Comedy

Additional Information

Awards and Affiliations

Mary Tucker Thorp College Professorship, 2023-2024

香港六合论坛 Alumni Association Faculty Award, 2023

Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, 2013-2025

Faculty Fellow, Television Academy Foundation Faculty Seminar, November 2018

Short-Term Travel Grant, National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), Summer 2018

Title VIII Short-Term Grant, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., April-May 2013

Summer Research Laboratory Associate, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, June 2010

Selected Participant, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Faculty Research Institute 鈥淩ussian and Soviet Visual Cultures, 1860-1935,鈥 New York Public Library, June-July 2008

Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Fellowship, 2005-2006

Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, 2004-2005

Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, 1998-2002