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Professor Toby Miller Appointed Chair of Film and Visual Culture Program
By Robert Bastone, Student Intern of CHASS College Computing

As part of the College’s dedication to promote interdisciplinary studies at UCR, first year professor Toby Miller has recently been appointed Chair of the Film and Visual Culture Program. In addition to his role as a professor of English, Sociology, and Women’s Studies, Professor Miller will be expanding the eleven year old program that has thrived in the past with relatively limited funding. Miller will be able to develop the program with an increased vigor because of the renewed support and financial commitment the College has made.

Professor Miller succeeds Professor Carole-Anne Tyler, who is credited with building and managing a program that has had limited resources in the past. Miller stated that he feels lucky to direct the program during a time in which the University has increased its “institutional investment” in film and visual arts. He also feels the investment will better permit the University to train students to make their own media and assist them by enabling them to gain work in this area.

Professor Toby Miller will direct the Film and Visual Culture Program with a vision to strengthen and shape the program. Currently, Miller has begun hiring faculty in a variety of areas who will contribute to public policy discussions, and to the knowledge of the effects of the media (including media diversity studies). A Latin American media specialist, Professor Freya Schiwy, has already been hired, and plans for recruitment of an Asian media specialist are underway.

According to Professor Miller, the program is going to aim at “empowering students with knowledge of the who, what, when, where, how, and why of the media—a crucial part of their lives as citizens and residents of the United States.” Miller added that students in the program will learn to identify and study “links between areas of cultural [media] production around the world that need greater consideration in the UC system and UCR in particular.” In the near future, the program will be hosting a new and exciting speaker series featuring experts on a variety of these topics.

Professor Miller is very experienced in his field. In the past, he has worked at New York University as a professor of Cultural Studies at the Tisch School of Arts. His teaching and research focus primarily on issues of media, sport, labor, gender, race, citizenship, politics and cultural policy. He is the author of numerous books on those issues, including The Avengers and Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media. He has also frequently appeared in print and electronic media and has worked in broadcasting, banking, and politics.

For more information on the Film and Visual Culture Program, please visit the Film and Visual Culture Website.

For a profile of Professor Toby Miller, please visit his faculty page.