Martin Louis Johnson

Associate Professor / Director of Undergraduate Studies

2012, PhD Cinema Studies, New York University
2005, MA Folklore, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2001, AB Modern Culture and Media, Brown University

Bio

Martin L. Johnson is an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Main Street Movies: The History of Local Film in the United States (Indiana, 2018), and has published journal articles in Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Early Popular Visual Culture, and The Moving Image.

---

Publications:

• Main Street Movies: The History of Local Films in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018.
• “A Distant Local View: The Small Town Film and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Occupation, 1942-1952,”
  A Companion to Documentary Film History. Ed. by Joshua Malitsky. Wiley Blackwell, 10-25.
• The Theatre or the Schoolhouse?: The Social Center, the Model Picture Show, and the Logic of Counter-attractions. Film History 29, No. 4 (2017), 1-31.
• The Well Lighted Theater or the Semi-Darkened Room?: Transparency, Opacity, and Participation in the Institution of Cinema. 2014. Early Popular Visual Culture 12, No. 2 (2014), 199-212.
• The Places You’ll Know: From Self-Recognition to Place Recognition in the Local Film,The Moving Image 10, No. 1 (2010), 24-50.

---

Awards

• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Open Book Program. 2020. $5,500.
• Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholarship Award, University of Minnesota. 2019. $500.
• William O’Farrell Fellowship. Northeast Historic Film. Bucksport, Maine. 2018. $1,500.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Project title: “Main Street Movies: Local Films in the United States, 1909-1975.” $50,400. January 1, 2015 – December 31, 2015.

---

Courses Taught:

• (CMPL 143) History of Global Cinema (ENGL 142) Film Analysis (ENGL 244) Queer Cinema (ENGL 255) Introduction to Media Studies (ENGL 380) Film History (ENGL 410) Documentary Film (ENGL 494) Research Methods in Film Studies (ENGL 580) Film: Contemporary Issues

---

Curriculum Vitae / Resume