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, Fundacion ONCE in Madrid published a Spanish translation, the dustjacket notes for which were written by the internationally acclaimed director and screenwriter Pedro Almodovar. A Japanese translation of The Cinema of Isolation is forthcoming in 2012. Marty has presented his research on movies and disability at conferences in London, Paris, Prague, Munich, Bologna, Salzburg, Brno, Galway, Montreal, 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 and jury spokesperson 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: Editions Rodopi, 2007). His ongoing research program on silent-era women filmmakers will soon include Lois Weber: Interviews, an anthology to be published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2013; and a book tentatively titled Women Filmmakers and the Birth Control Movement, 1916-17.

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.