- Department, Office, or School
- Department of English
- Film Studies Program
- Council of Rhode Island College
- Professor
- emailvbohlinger@ric.edu
- phone401-456-8028
- location_onCraig-Lee-B, 042
Biography
I started at RIC 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—how 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’s full-scale attack on Ukraine has ignited my attention toward contemporary Ukrainian cinema. Other interests include—but certainly are not limited to—documentary, 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—compounded with domestic and international influence and competition—shifted 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’s 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—especially with the faculty union and College Council, which I chaired for four years. I was the long-time advisor for the Ocean State/RIC Film Society and am currently a co-advisor for the Asian Student Association. I am also RIC’s 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 Fulbright. We’ve 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—all 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
“Contemporary Ukrainian Documentary” coedited with Yuliya V. Ladygina, KinoKultura 81 (July 2023). [33 essays and 4 filmmaker interviews]
“Focus on Ukraine” coedited with Olga Blackledge, Joshua First, and Yuliya V. Ladygina, KinoKultura 77 (July 2022). [39 essays and 5 filmmaker interviews]
Articles and Chapters
“Commercialism and the Quotidian” [On Andy Warhol Eating a Hamburger from 66 Scenes from America (Jørgen Leth, 1981)], Short Film Studies 10, no. 2 (2020): 141-144.
“Miss Mend.” In Silent Features: Essays on Silent Feature-Length Films, 1914-1934, edited by Steve Neale, 164-177. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2018.
“Crowdfunding in the Sixties: The Financing of Emile de Antonio’s Political Documentary Rush to Judgment (1966),” Frames 12 (December 2017).
“On Fairy Tales and the Materiality of Sand” [On Zepo (César Díaz Meléndez, 2014)], Short Film Studies 8, no. 1 (2017): 41-44.
“Echoes of The 400 Blows: Ambiguous Closure in Art Cinema” [On The Beach (Dorthe Scheffmann, 1995)], Short Film Studies 7, no. 1 (2016): 67-70.
“On the Malaise and Menace of a Pencil Sharpener” [On Urząd (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1966)], Short Film Studies 5, no. 1 (April 2015): 45-48.
“The East is a delicate matter’: White Sun of the Desert and the Soviet Western.” In (Re)Locating the Frontier: International Western Films, edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, 373-393. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2014.
“Self-Reflexivity and Historical Revision in A Moment of Innocence and The Apple.” In Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mattias Frey, 125-141. London: Routledge, 2014.
“The Development of Sound Technology in the Soviet Union during the First Five-Year Plan,” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 7, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 189-205.
“Engrossing? Exciting! Incomprehensible? Boring! Audience Survey Responses to Eisenstein’s October,” Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 5, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 5-27.
“Arnheim on the Ontology of the Photographic Image.” 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 – 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
RIC 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 “Russian and Soviet Visual Cultures, 1860-1935,” 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