Sue Collins

Contact

scollins@mtu.edu
906-487-3260
Walker 305

Associate Professor of Communication, Culture, & Media
Associate Chair, Department of Humanities

PhD, New York University

Biography

Dr. Sue Collins's research interests include media and cultural history, political economy of media industries and popular culture, and critical cultural policy studies. Her book manuscript, Calling All Stars: Hollywood, Cultural Labor, & the Politics of Authority During World War I, focuses on a decisive moment in celebrity’s development as a form of political authority--when government officials recruited the commercial film industry and its stars to endorse war mobilization. It argues that the film stars' participation in the propaganda campaign represented a new manner of linking state policy with cultural activities in the regulation of unified national identity. Dr. Collins was a recipient of the 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute fellowship, World War I and the Arts: Sound, Vision, Psyche. In fall 2018, Dr. Collins directed the community-wide project, World War I & the Copper Country (funded, in part, by the Michigan Humanities Council). She is currently co-director (with Stefka Hristova) of the year-long campus project Bad Info: Fake News, Manipulated Photographs, and Social Influencers (funded, in part, by Michigan Humanities). She is a co-editor (with Patty Sotirin and Steve Walton) and author contributor for the book, Home Front in the American Heartland: Local Experiences and Legacies of World War I (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2020). She has published her work in Television & New Media, Film History, Cinema Journal, History of Media Studies, and in book chapters on celebrity and activism, war and propaganda, and film history.

She teaches such courses as Popular Culture, Media Industries, Globalization & Media, Media & Society, and Environmental Communication, as well as graduate courses in communication, cultural studies, and media studies in the Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture program.

Recent Publications

"Kearny's Godmother Bara--Naught and Nice: Hollywood, Stars, and the Great War," under review with California History (UC Berkeley Press).
Review, Chinatown Film Culture: The Appearance of Cinema in San Francisco’s Chinese Neighborhood (Kim K. Fahlstedt. Berkeley: University California, 2020) California History 100, 1 (Feb. 2023): 95-98.
"What Film and Cultural Histories Can Teach Us about YouTubers," History of Media Studies, 1 (2021), https://hms.mediastudies.press/pub/collins-film-cultural/release/2
Home Front in the American Heartland: Local Experiences and Legacies of World War I, co-edited with Patty Sotirin and Steven Walton. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2020.
"Copper Country Motion Picture Theaters and World War I" In Home Front in the American Heartland: Local Experiences and Legacies of World War I, edited by Patty Sotirin, Steven Walton, and Sue Collins,138-167. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2020.
"Star Testimonies: World War and the Cultural Politics of Authority." In Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex, edited by Haidee Wasson and Lee Grieveson, 281-304. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018.
“Star Testimonies and Trailers: Mobilizing During World War I,” Cinema Journal, 57.1 (Fall 2017): 46-70.
“Politainment,” co-authored with Kristina Riegert, International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, edited by Gianpietro Mazzoleni, 974- 984. MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
“Send Your Soldier to the Show with Smileage: Film, Cultural Policy, and the World War I Training Camps,” Film History, 26, 1 (April 2014): 1-49.
"Performing Ordinary: Politicians, Celebrity, & the Politics of Representation on Entertainment Talk," Popular Culture Studies Journal, 2 (October 2014): 109-139. Online issue: http://mpcaaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/B06-Collins-Performing-Ordinary.pdf
“I’m Not a Celebrity but I Play One on Late-Night TV: The Problem with Politicians and Celebrity.” In Venomous Speech and Other Problems in American Political Discourse, Vol. 2, edited by Clarke Rountree, 339-358. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013.
“Propaganda Studies: The U.S. Interwar Years.” In Media History and the Foundations of Media Studies, Vol. 1, The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, edited by John Nerone and Angharad Valdivia, 578-609. MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
“After 4 Years of a Celebrity President,” is Romney the Anti-Celebrity Candidate?” Contributing curator, In Media Res, “Political Polarization” theme week, August 13-17, 2012; online publication: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2012/08/13/after-4-years-celebrity-president-romney-anti-celebrity-candidate
“Bonding with the Crowd: Silent Film Stars, Liveness, and the Public Sphere.” In Convergence Media History, edited by Janet Staiger and Sabine Hake, 117-126. New York: Routledge, 2009.
“Celebrity Activism and 9/11: ‘A Simple Show of Unity.’” In War Isn’t Hell, It’s Entertainment: War in Modern Culture and Visual Media, edited by Rikke Schubart and Fabian Virchow, Tanja Thomas and Debra White-Stanley, 77-93. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishers, 2009.
“Making the Most Out of Fifteen Minutes: Reality TV’s Dispensable Celebrity,” Television & New Media, 9, 2 (March 2008), 87-110.Reprinted in The Television Reader: Critical Perspective in Canadian and US Television Studies, edited by Mirrlees, Tanner, and Joseph Kispal-Kovacs. Oxford University Press, 2012.
“Traversing Authenticities: President Bartlet and Activist Sheen?” In Politicotainment: Television’s Take on the Real, edited by Kristina Riegert, 181-211. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.

Presentations

“Why We Need the Golden Buzzer: Transnational ‘Big Moments’ in America’s Got Talent that ‘Feel Good,’” paper presented, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Denver, April 12-15, 2023.
“Preparing Children to Fund and Fight the Cold War: The Lone Ranger’s Peace Patrol & Savings Stamps Campaign,” paper presented, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Virtual, March 5-21, 2021.
“Local Theatres, Propaganda & World War I,” World War I & the Copper Country Keynote Address, Orpheum Theatre, Hancock, Michigan, September 2018.
“Smiles from Home: Itinerant Cinema and the Great War at the Western Front,” paper presented, A Holiday from War? “Resting” Behind the Lines During the First World War Conference, Paris, June 22- 23, 2018.
“All-Star PR: Popular Authority & the Financialization of the Militarized State,” paper presented, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago, March 23-26, 2016.
“Star Power & the Cultural Politics of Authority in World War,” poster presentation, International Association of Communication, Fukuoka, June 2016.
“Authorizing the Celebrity Intellectual,” paper accepted to be presented, Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Montreal, March 2015.
“Star Testimonies: Speeches, Tours, and Trailers,” symposium lecture at The Great War: Experience Representations, Effects, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, October 2014.
“Star Testimonies: Allegory, Melodrama, and Atrocities in the Liberty Bond Propaganda Films,” paper presented, Legacies of World War I conference, Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, November, 2014.
“ ‘Show Your Soldier Boy a Good Time”: Smileage, Cultural Policy, and WWI Training Camp Amusements,” paper presented, Cultural Studies Association Conference, Salt Lake City, 2014.
“Send Your Soldier to the Show with Smileage: Film, Cultural Policy, and the Politics of Authority During World War I,” paper presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Chicago, March 2013.
“Performing the Ordinary: Politicians, Political Style, and the Celebrity Frame,” paper presented at the International Communication Association, London, June 2013.
“War Mobilization and Cultural Policy: A Challenge to Propaganda Theory,” paper presented at the New Histories of Communication Study Preconference, International Communication Association conference, London, June 2013.
“Performing Citizenship: Crisis and the Celebrity Media Event,” paper presented at Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, New Orleans, March 2011.
“The Work of Watching: Immaterial Labor of Recombinant Cable News,” paper presented at the National Association of Communication conference, San Francisco, November, 2010.