|
MARTIN F. NORDEN
BIOGRAPHIC SUMMARY
Marty Norden teaches film history/theory/criticism and screenwriting as a
Professor of Communication at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst,
USA. He is a core faculty member of UMass-Amherst's Interdepartmental Film Studies
Program and has long been a part of the Five
College community of film/video scholars and practitioners. His
degrees include a Ph.D. in Speech & Dramatic Art from
the University of Missouri-Columbia
and a Bachelor of Journalism in broadcasting from Mizzou's world-famous School of Journalism.
Marty's main area of research centers on the movie
representation of people with disabilities (PWDs). He is the author of
many publications on the topic, principally The
Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994). This widely praised historical overview of filmic
depictions of PWDs has also been published as an audio book and a braille
book. In 1998, Fundación ONCE in Madrid published a Spanish translation, the dustjacket notes for
which were written by the internationally acclaimed director and
screenwriter Pedro
Almodóvar. A Japanese translation of The Cinema of
Isolation
is forthcoming in 2010. Marty has presented his research on movies and
disability at conferences in London, Paris, Prague, Munich, Salzburg,
Brno, Galway, Montréal, and many venues across the United States. Most
notably, he delivered a keynote address at the University of Iowa's 1999 "Screening
Disability" conference, the first-ever scholarly assembly devoted to
the intersecting concerns of the Cinema Studies and Disability Studies
fields. In November 2007, Marty returned to Munich to serve as a jury
member for the disability-themed "Wie Wir Leben!"
("The Way We Live!") international film festival sponsored by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Behinderung und Medien (Disability and Media Association).
In addition to his work in movies and disability, Marty has written,
co-authored, or edited numerous other publications, including
Movies: A Language in Light (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984), John Barrymore: A
Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), and
The Changing Face of Evil in Film and
Television (Amsterdam: Éditions Rodopi, 2007). His ongoing
research program on silent-era women filmmakers will soon include
a book-length study of three birth control movies made in 1916-17 by
Margaret Sanger and Lois Weber. Marty is also the Book Review Editor for the Journal of Popular Film &
Television.
Marty has supplemented his academic pursuits with a lengthy secondary
career as a theatrical performer. He has
appeared in more than 30 plays, primarily in association with the UMass-Amherst and Smith College theater
departments. Favorite roles include Robert in Proof, Kit Carson in
The Time of Your Life, Giles Corey in The Crucible, and
Frank Strang in Equus. He has originated a dozen roles, including
Clyde in Constance Congdon's Po Mo Home at the UMass-Amherst
Play in a Day Festival and Clay Van Ingen in Darren Harned's
Ephemera at the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Play Festival
in New York City. Marty has performed professionally with several regional
companies and served as a script consultant on William Luce's Broadway
play Barrymore.
|