Rate My Professor Daniel Bernardi

Daniel Bernardi is a Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University in the Arts and Culture faculty, serving since 2011 as Internship Coordinator and Director of the Documentary Corps. He previously held positions as Chair of the School of Cinema from 2011 to 2014 and Interim Dean of the College of Liberal & Creative Arts from 2014 to 2016. Earlier in his career, Bernardi was Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Arizona State University from 2007 to 2010, Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Arts at the University of Arizona from 2000 to 2006, and held visiting positions at UCLA and UC Riverside. He earned a Ph.D. in Film and Television from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995, an M.A. in Media Arts from the University of Arizona in 1991, and a B.A. in Radio-TV with a minor in Drama from the University of Arizona in 1988.

A critical race studies scholar and documentary filmmaker, Bernardi specializes in the representation and narration of whiteness in film, television, and popular culture, blending semiotics and cultural studies. His publications include authored and edited books such as Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future (Rutgers University Press, 1998), The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 1996), Off the Page: Screenwriting in the Era of Media Convergence (University of California Press, 2017, co-authored), and Narrative Landmines: Islamist Extremism and the Uses of Rumor in the Struggle for Strategic Influence (Rutgers University Press, 2012). He has produced documentaries including The American War (2018, Best Documentary, Anchorage International Film Festival), The War to End All Wars… and its American Veterans (2019), and The Forgotten War: Korea 1950-1953 (2020), distributed on platforms like Kanopy, Amazon, and Alexander Street. Bernardi's honors include the University Teaching Award from the University of Arizona Honors College (2002), Fulbright Lecturing Fellowship (2009), Ford Dissertation Fellowship (1994-1995), and UC President’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1995-1997).