Paula Tatla Amad

Visiting Scholar

PhD. University of Chicago; Associate Professor, Cinema and Comparative Literature, University of Iowa

Residence: September 1 - December 31, 2011

Profile

Paula was born in Australia to Lebanese parents. She did her BA and MA at the University of Melbourne and moved to the States to do her PhD at the University of Chicago. She currently teaches at the University of Iowa where she works at the intersection of film history, film theory, and literary studies, with particular expertise in French cinema, nonfiction film, archive and memory studies, postcolonial theory in the visual domain, and the relationship between photography and film. She has published articles in Camera Obscura, Framework, Film History, and Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, some of which have been translated into German and Italian. Her current book projects include one on the archival imaginary of post-war French cinema and another on aerial photography and film, and article projects on the cinematic haunting of the site of Les Halles (Paris' former market district) and women's historical contribution to French cinephilia. Paula has taught at Melbourne University (Australia), Indiana University (USA), and University of Paris III Nouvelle-Sorbonne (France). Her book Counter-Archive was awarded the category of highly recommended book by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book Awards for 2011.