Critical Media & Cultural Studies Department
Faculty
Meet the Critical Media and Cultural Studies faculty.
Denise Cummings, PhD
Associate Professor, Department Chair Spring 2022
Cornell Social Sciences Building - Room 146
T. 407.646.2320
M.A. Salve Regina University
M.A. Carnegie Mellon University
Ph.D. University of Florida
Denise K. Cummings joined Rollins College in 2003. Prior to the founding of the Department of Critical Media and Cultural Studies, she served as Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Rollins. Dr. Cummings’ teaching and research interests are situated at the intersection of critical cinema studies, cultural studies, and critical theory, with emphases in the fields of Native American and global Indigenous Studies and Art/visual culture. By creating opportunities for high impact community-based immersion learning, Dr. Cummings exposes her students to resource-rich networks to enhance learning, engender change, and advance social justice. She curates film programs for the annual Native American Literature Symposium and serves on selection and steering committees and juries for several film festivals including the Florida Film Festival (Maitland, FL) and the Global Peace Film Festival (Orlando, FL). Her publications include Visualities 2: More Perspectives on Contemporary American Indian Film and Art (Michigan State University Press 2019); Seeing Red, Hollywood’s Pixeled Skins: American Indians and Film (Michigan State University Press, 2013); “Florida: The Mediated State,” a special issue of Florida Historical Quarterly (2012); and Visualities: Perspectives on Contemporary American Indian Film and Art (Michigan State University Press 2011). Her essays about Indigenous Cinema and Native American Literature have appeared in award-winning volumes and have been reprinted in the U.S. and abroad.
Steven Schoen, PhD
Associate Professor, Department Chair Fall 2021
Cornell Social Sciences Building - Room 180
T. 407.691.1798
B.A. St. Meinrad College
M.A. Aquinas Institute
M.A. (Media Communications), Webster University
Ph.D. University of South Florida
Steve W. Schoen is associate professor of Critical Media and Cultural Studies and specializes in documentary production, theory and criticism, and media representations of gender and sexuality. Dr. Schoen teaches Introduction to Media and Cultural Studies, Digital Storytelling, Media, Gender and Sexualities, and Making Documentaries. His scholarly publications include "Making Sense Under a Midnight Sun: Transdisciplinary Art, Documentary Film, and Cultural Exchange" in the journal Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies and "Blackfish-ing for Buzz: The Rhetoric of the Real in Theme Parks and Documentary" in the Journal of Florida Studies. Dr. Schoen's most recent documentary, Groaning from the Soul (2016), documents the visit of Professor Carolyn Ellis and Holocaust survivor Jerry Rawicki to the Nazi death camp Treblinka where Rawicki's mother and sister died.
Lisa Tillmann, PhD
Professor
Cornell Social Sciences Building - Room 145
T. 407.646.1586
B.A. Marquette University
Ph.D. University of South Florida
Lisa M. Tillmann, Ph.D., is an activist researcher, social justice documentary filmmaker, and professor of Critical Media and Cultural Studies (CMC), a program she founded at Rollins College. Grounded in values of peace, equity, and justice, CMC examines the world’s most pressing issues and challenges and helps students envision ways to work toward change. On campus and in central Florida, Dr. Tillmann has participated in numerous activist initiatives, many centering on civil rights. She authored the books, Between Gay and Straight: Understanding Friendship across Sexual Orientation, and In Solidarity: Friendship, Family, and Activism Beyond Gay and Straight, produced the film Weight Problem: Cultural Narratives of Fat and “Obesity,” and co-produced the films Off the Menu: Challenging the Politics and Economics of Body and Food and Remembering a Cool September (about LGBT civil rights).
R. Culpepper
Administrative Assistant
Cornell Social Science Building - Room 154
T. 407.646.2337