Kathleen Rowe Karlyn

Kathleen Rowe Karlyn

Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Ph.D. 92

Founding Director of the Cinema Studies Program, University of Oregon Professor Emerita, Department of English, University of Oregon

Ph.D. in Telecommunication and Film, University of Oregon, 1992 M.L. A. (Master of Liberal Arts), Johns Hopkins University B.A. in English Literature, University of Connecticut, University Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude Curriculum Vitae  

Kathleen Rowe Karlyn came to academia after shorter careers in secondary education and print journalism. During her years in the UO’s English Department, Julia Lesage and Karlyn created and administered an interdisciplinary Certificate in Film Studies, which lay the foundation for the current Cinema Studies major. Karlyn has taken pleasure and pride in the institutional continuity represented by being a member of the last class to earn a degree from Oregon’s former Telecommunication and Film program and by serving as the first director of its new Cinema Studies major. Karlyn has written two books, a number of articles and is in the early stages of a third book, co-edited with Sarah Kozloff, on female directors. Kathleen Rowe Karlyn is an internationally renowned feminist media scholar. Her research and many seminal publications have had a significant impact on the fields of film and television studies, gender studies, and cultural studies. Professor Karlyn hired, mentored, and guided countless graduate students who now have robust professional careers both in and out of academia. All the while, she remained at the cutting edge of a politically engaged scholarship in feminist media studies.

Selected Publications:

The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter

Austin: University of Texas Press Film Series, 1995. Reviewed in Film Quarterly 50.2 (1996-97): 58-60; The Women’s Review of Books XIII.4 (1996): 15.

Co-winner of the American Culture/Popular Culture Association's 1996 Emily Toth Award for best single-authored feminist study of popular culture. Nominated for MLA First Book Award.

Selections reprinted in Hollywood Comedians: The Film Reader. Ed. Frank Krutnik. 117-125. New York: Routledge Film Reader, 2003, and Understanding Inequality: The Intersection of Race/Ethnicity, Gender and Class. Ed. Barbara Arrighi. 7-11, 30-31, 51-57, 59-69. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, 2006.

Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen

Austin: University of Texas Press Film Series, 2011. Reviewed in Screen 52.4 (2011): 537-40; Journal of American History 98.3 (2011): 912; Quarterly Review of Film and Video 30.4 (2013): 358-363; Women’s Studies in Communication 36.2 (2013): 209-16; http://www.examiner.com/review/book-review-of-unruly-girls-unrepentant-mothers.

"Roseanne: Unruly Woman as Domestic Goddess." Screen 31.4 (1990): 408-19.

Reprinted in Lähikuva (Close-up), ed. Juha Herkman, translated to Finnish, 3, 2002. Stars: The Film Reader, eds. Lucy Fischer and Marcia Landy, New York: Routledge, 2004.  Thinking In and Out of the Box: Revisiting Race/Ethnicity, Class and Gender in the United States, ed. Barbara A. Arrighi, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Ltd., 2000. Critiquing the Sitcom: A Reader, ed. Joanne Morreale, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2000. Film and Theory: An Anthology, eds. Robert Stam and Toby Miller, Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader,   eds. Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D'Acci and Lynn Spigel, London: Oxford University Press, 1997. Turning It On: A Reader in Women and Media, ed. Ann Gray, Surrey, UK: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1995. Television: The Critical View, ed. Horace Newcomb, fifth edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.