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Kirsten Moana Thompson
Chair, Department of Film and Media
Professor of Film and Media
Kirsten Moana Thompson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Film and Media at Seattle University.
Biography
Dr. Kirsten Moana Thompson - CV (PDF)
Kirsten Moana Thompson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Film and Media at Seattle University. Previously, she taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and Wayne State University in Detroit. She teaches and writes on animation and color studies, as well as New Zealand and Pacific studies, classical Hollywood cinema and German cinema. She is the author of Apocalyptic Dread: American Cinema at the Turn of the Millennium(SUNY Press, 2007); Crime Films: Investigating the Scene(Wallflower, 2007); and co-editor with Terri Ginsberg of Perspectives on German Cinema(GK Hall: NY, 1996). She is currently working on several new books including Animated America: Intermedial Promotion from Times Square to Walt Disney and Color, Visual Culture and Animation.
Education
- Ph.D. Cinema Studies, New York University, USA, 1998
- M.A. (First Class Honors) English Literature, Auckland University, New Zealand, 1989
- B.A. English Literature and History, Auckland University, New Zealand, 1986
Courses Taught
- FILM 4910: A History of Visual and Special Effects, Winter 2021
- FILM 3720: Pacific Cinema, Winter 2019
- FILM 3020: History of Film Fall 2016
- FILM 4910: Murder Most Foul: Crime Cinema, Winter 2017, Winter 2018, Fall 2020, Winter 2025
- FILM 3910/3280: Loony Toons and Cwazy Wabbits: History of Classical Cel Animation, Winter 2017, Fall 2021
- FILM 3000/3820: Intro to Film Winter 2025, Winter 2020, Winter 2019, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Winter 2018
- FILM 3220: Film Noir, Fall 2017, Fall 2021
- UCOR 1400: Intro to Visual Culture: Race/Gender/Sex, Winter 2022
Publications
- Animation and Advertising: eds. Malcolm Cook and Kirsten Moana Thompson, London and New York: Palgrave, Dec. 2019
- Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007;
- Crime Films: Investigating the Scene. London: Columbia University Press, 2007
- Perspectives on German Cinema eds. Terri Ginsberg and Kirsten Moana Thompson. New York: G.K. Hall, 1996
- “Color in Animation” The Routledge Companion to Animation Studies, ed. Paul Taberham and Nichola Dobson (New York; Routledge, 2025)
- “Drawn to Life: Intermedial Promotion in Disney and Cirque du Soleil" for Companion to American Film History, eds Pam Wojcik and Paula Massood, Media and Cultural Studies Companion Series (Routledge, NY), forthcoming 2024 (Counted for 2024)
- “American Animation and Color” Color in Motion: A Chromatic Exploration of Color (Los Angeles: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), forthcoming 2024 (Counted for 2024)
- “Hallucinogenic Color in the Disney Musical: Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros”, The Oxford Handbook of the Disney Musical, eds. Dominic Broomfield-McHugh and Colleen Montgomery, Oxford, forthcoming, 2024.
- "Animation und Werbung", Malcolm Cook and Kirsten Moana Thompson, Handbook Animation Studies, (In German) eds. Franziska Bruckner, Julia Eckel, Maike Reinerth, and Erwin Feyersinger. Springer, forthcoming, 2024.
- "Disney, DuPont and Faber Birren: Hollywood and the Color Revolution" eds. Katherine Spring and Phillipa Gates, Resetting the Scene: Classical Hollywood Revisited. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2021: 118-130.
- “Tattooed Light and Embodied Design: Intersectional Surfaces in Moana” eds. Paula Massood, Angel Daniel Matos, and Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Media Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021: 250-261.
- Copyright under COVID-19. Special Teaching Media Dossier, coed. with Brendan Kredell, Journal for Cinema and Media Studies (JCMS), teaching Dossier, March 2021