Rate My Professor Kirsten Thompson

Kirsten Moana Thompson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Film and Media in Seattle University's College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University (1998), an M.A. in English Literature with First Class Honors from the University of Auckland (1989), and a B.A. in English Literature and History from the University of Auckland (1986). Her academic career includes serving as Director of the Film Program and Professor of Film Studies at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand (2012-2016), and as Assistant Professor (1999-2006) and Associate Professor (2006-2012) in the Department of English, with Directorship of the Film Program, at Wayne State University in Detroit. At Seattle University since 2016, she has held leadership roles including the Theiline Pigott McCone Endowed Chair in Humanities (2022-2024), focusing on visual culture and media in the humanities through interdisciplinary reading groups, symposia, and the annual Pigott-McCone Lecture.

Thompson's research specializations encompass animation, color aesthetics, sponsored animation, classical and contemporary American cinema, media archaeology, Pacific and New Zealand studies, visual culture, and German cinema. She has authored and co-edited key publications such as Animation and Advertising (co-edited with Malcolm Cook, Palgrave, 2019), Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the Turn of the Millennium (SUNY Press, 2007), Crime Films: Investigating the Scene (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2007), and Perspectives on German Cinema (co-edited with Terri Ginsberg, G.K. Hall, 1996). Recent works include chapters like "Disney, DuPont and Faber Birren: Hollywood and the Color Revolution" in Resetting the Scene: Classical Hollywood Revisited (Wayne State University Press, 2021), "Tattooed Light and Embodied Design: Intersectional Surfaces in Moana" in Media Crossroads (Duke University Press, 2021), and "Live Electrically with Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant" in Animation and Advertising (Palgrave, 2019). Her contributions have earned awards including the Provost Award for Outstanding Service (2022), McLaren-Lambert Award Runner-Up for Best Scholarly Book in Animation Studies (2021), and Honorable Mention for Best Edited Collection from the British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies (2021). Thompson has also served as co-editor for the Journal for Cinema and Media Studies teaching dossier on copyright under COVID-19 (2021) and held positions such as Vice President of Faculty Handbook in Seattle University's Academic Assembly.