Michael Renov, Ph.D.

Professor
Associate Dean, Academic Affairs

213.740.2804
mrenov@cinema.usc.edu
SCA 465

Michael Renov, professor of Critical Studies, has since 2003 served as the School of Cinematic Arts associate dean for academic affairs. Renov is the author of Hollywood's Wartime Woman: Representation and Ideology and The Subject of Documentary, editor of Theorizing Documentary, and co-editor of Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, Collecting Visible Evidence, and The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies.

In 1993, Renov co-founded Visible Evidence, a series of international and highly interdisciplinary documentary studies conferences that have, to date, been held on four continents. He is one of three general editors for the Visible Evidence book series at the University of Minnesota Press, which has published more than 20 volumes on various aspects of nonfiction media since 1997. In 2005, he co-programmed the 51st annual Robert Flaherty Seminar, a week-long gathering of documentary filmmakers, curators, and educators, creating 20 screening programs and filmmaker dialogues on the theme "Cinema and History."

In addition to curating documentary programs around the world, he has served as a jury member at documentary festivals including Sundance, Silverdocs, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and Brazil's It's All True. He has twice taught graduate seminars at Stockholm University and has led documentary workshops in Jordan for the Royal Film Commission and the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts. Renov's teaching and research interests include documentary theory, autobiography in film and video, video art and activism, and representations of the Holocaust.