Michael D. Dwyer
PhD candidate, English
Syracuse University
I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in English at Syracuse University, specializing in film and media studies. My research interests are in the ways that the circulation and citation of film, popular music, television, and other popular culture texts serve as forms of cultural memory, and how their consumption functions as collective historiography. My dissertation, Back to the Fifties: Pop Nostalgia in the Reagan Era, pursues this interest in the films of the 1980s that sought to recapture, recast, re-enact or re-imagine the 1950s. It is on schedule for a April 2010 defense.
I have published and presented work on Reaganism in 1980s popular culture, the collaboration between riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna and video artist Sadie Benning in the group Le Tigre, the politics of DIY protest art and culture, new collaborative cultural practices in online communities, and cultural geography in the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
I have taught courses on film, popular culture, American literature, race and ethnicity, and composition, and have served as a Teaching Mentor for the Fulbright Program, the University-Wide TA Program, and the SU Writing Program's Teaching Practicum.
In my time as a graduate student, I also served as a representative to the departmental assembly, founded a monthly graduate student paper series, an annual Speaker Series, and an online Teaching Archive for new instructors in the department.
Before arriving at Syracuse, I completed a Masters in Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University and a BA in English at the University of Miami. Outside the classroom, I enjoy soccer (as a spectator and participant), DIY/underground music, theater and performance, bicycling, pub trivia, YouTube, and bad karaoke. I am also one of the founders of RustBeltRising.com, a website for music and event listings in Rust Belt cities.
