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TANINE ALLISON
Department of Film and Media Studies
Emory University
​updated July 2022

EDUCATION
  • Ph.D., 2010   University of Pittsburgh, English with Certificates in Film Studies and Cultural Studies
  • A.B., 2001   Brown University, Modern Culture and Media

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
  • Senior Fellow, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, 2022–present
  • Associate Professor, Emory University, Department of Film and Media Studies, 2019–present
  • Assistant Professor, Emory University, Department of Film and Media Studies, 2013–2019
  • American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow, Emory University, Department of Film and Media Studies, 2011–2013

PUBLICATIONS (selected)
Book Essays in Blind Peer-Reviewed Journals Essays in Peer-Reviewed Edited Collections
  • “Mediating the Human in Facial Performance Capture,” Faces on Screen: New Approaches, edited by Alice Maurice (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), 239–255.
    “Visual Effects: The Modern Entertainment Marketplace (2000-present),” Editing and Special/Visual Effects, edited by Kristen Whissel and Charlie Keil, Behind the Silver Screen Series (Rutgers University Press, 2016), 172–185.
  • “How to Recognize a War Movie: The Contemporary Science Fiction Blockbuster as Military Recruitment Film,” A Companion to the War Film, edited by Douglas A. Cunningham and John Nelson (Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 253–270.
  • “Blackface, Happy Feet: The Politics of Race in Motion Capture and Animation,” Special Effects: New Histories, Theories, Contexts, edited by Dan North, Bob Rehak, and Michael Duffy (BFI/Palgrave, 2015), 114–126.
Book Project in Progress
  • Performing Race and Gender in Digital Visual Effects
 
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
  • Senior Fellowship, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Emory University, 2022–2023
  • University Research Committee, Emory University, 2015–2016
  • American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellowship, 2011–2013
  • Fund for Innovative Teaching Grant, “Video Games in the Academy,” Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, Emory University, 2011–2012
  • Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2008–2009
  • Distinguished Teaching Award for Teaching Fellows, University of Pittsburgh, 2008
  • Research Travel Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 2008
  • Elizabeth Baranger Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Pittsburgh, 2006

PRESENTATIONS (selected)
Invited Talks
  • “Digital Will Smith: Gemini Man, Visual Effects, and Post-Racial Ideology,” Emory University Art History Department, Virtual, April 13, 2021.
  • “Interactive Movies? Until Dawn and the Limits of Control in Video Games,” Georgia State University, November 7, 2018.
  • “War, Media, and the Destructive Sublime,” Appalachian State University, October 18, 2018.
  • “War, Media, and the Destructive Sublime,” Emory University, October 2, 2018.
  • “Game On: Emerging Interactive Technology for Research and Teaching,” with Daniel Reynolds, Life of the Mind talk sponsored by Emory Office of the President and the Provost, November 2, 2016.  Recording available at https://youtu.be/D__FICz4L4Q.
  • “Digital Warfare: Adapting the World War II Combat Film for Video Games,” Film and Media Studies Colloquium, Emory University, September 8, 2011.
Conferences
  • “The End of Animation? De-Aging in The Irishman,” Society for Animation Studies Conference, Teesside University (UK), attended virtually, June 27–30, 2022.
  • “Intersectional Morphs: From Michael Jackson to the ‘New Face of America,’” Console-ing Passions: International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism, University of Central Florida, attended virtually, June 23–25, 2022.
  • “Digital Rejuvenation: De-aging White Masculinity in The Irishman,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Virtual, March 31–April 3, 2022.
  • “Making a Digital Human: Will Smith, Visual Effects, and Post-racial Ideology,” Interactive Film and Media Conference, Virtual, August 5–7, 2021.
  • “Conveying the Soul of a Performance: Facial Animation in Digital Humans,” Society for Animation Studies Conference, Virtual, June 14–18, 2021.
  • “Digitizing Will Smith: (Post-)Race and the Digital Human in Gemini Man,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Virtual, March 17–24, 2021.
  • “Digital Restoration as Historical Spectacle,” Roundtable on They Shall Not Grow Old (2018), Film & History Conference (Designing Culture and Character: Technology in Film, Television, and New Media), Madison, Wisc., Nov. 14–17, 2019.
  • “Digital Transference: Race, Gender, and the Transformational Promise of Motion Capture,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Seattle, March 13–17, 2019.
  • Panel Co-organizer/Co-chair: “Contested Cartographies: Mapping Gender and Genre in Contemporary Film and Television,” with Eileen Rositzka. Paper: “‘This Is One War We’re Not Gonna Lose’: Gender, Orientalism, and Destructive Cartography in Kong: Skull Island.” Console-ing Passions: International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism, Bournemouth University, UK, July 11–13, 2018.
  • “Are Video Games Becoming Movies, and Vice Versa?” Ends of Cinema Conference, Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, May 3–5, 2018.
  • “Acting Posthuman: Performance Capture and Video Games,” Rendering (the) Visible III: Liquidity Conference, Georgia State University, February 8–10, 2018.
  • Panel Organizer/Chair: “Reexamining Gender and Violence in Contemporary Video Games.” Paper: “Gender, Possession, and Representational Violence in Video Games,” Console-ing Passions: International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism, East Carolina University, July 27–29, 2017.
  • “Abstracting Bodies in Experimental Motion Visualizations,” Society for Literature, Science and the Arts Conference, Atlanta, Nov. 3-6, 2016.
  • Panel Organizer/Chair: “War in Contemporary Global Media: Between Commemoration and Critique.” Paper: “Saving White Masculinity: American War Films of the Late 1990s,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Atlanta, March 30–April 3, 2016.

INTERVIEWS
  • Radio interview on Veterans Day films for “City Lights with Lois Reitzes,” Nov. 2020
  • Online profile in the Atlanta Jewish Times, “The Impact of Media and Video Games,” Aug. 2019
  • Video interview on multimodal assignments for Domain of One’s Own program at Emory, May 2015
  • Radio interview on the best films of 2014 for “On Second Thought” on GPB radio, Dec. 2014
  • Print interview on X-Men: Days of Future Past, “Nostalgia Draws New X-Men Film Back to the Future,” for Emory News, May 2014