Professor
Communication
Professor
Cinema Studies Minor
Office
Emma Hart Willard Hall
401-39
Monday
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Wednesday
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Friday
9:00 am - 10:00 am
Or by appointment
Biography

Dr. Karen A. Ritzenhoff is a Professor of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. She is also affiliated with the s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program (WGSS) as well as Cinema Studies and the Honors Program. Ritzenhoff co-edited two volumes on Contemporary Asian Popular Culture with Dr. Yeojin "Julie" Kim (Communication), Dr. Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe (English) and Dr. Hiba Aleem (English, Emmanuel College). The anthologies will be published by Palgrave MacMillan (Springer Group) in January 2025.

Recently her co-edited anthology on "Gender, Power, and Identity in the Films of Stanley Kubrick" with Dijana Metlic and Jeremi Szaniawski (Routledge, 2023) was released in paperback. 

https://www.routledge.com/Gender-Power-and-Identity-in-The-Films-of-Stanley-Kubrick/Ritzenhoff-Metlic-Szaniawski/p/book/9781032072227

Further publications: "Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness" with Renee T. White (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). 

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793623577/Afrofuturism-in-Black-Panther-Gender-Identity-and-the-Re-Making-of-Blackness

"Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century" with Elena Caoduro and Karen Randell (Palgrave, 2021). 

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-73511-1

 

 

 

Education
Film Studies, Communication, Comparative Literature
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
1996
Film Studies and Communication
University of Minnesota
1993
Communication, Journalism, Film Studies
University of Minnesota
1989
Romance Languages, Political Science, American Studies
University of Tubingen, Germany
1988
Romance Languages, Political Science, American Studies
Siegen University, Germany
1987
Areas of Expertise

Study Abroad courses to France, Italy, the UK, and Spain/Portugal

Film Studies

Gender Studies

Television and mass media

TV Documentary

Global Visual Communication

Women and Film

American Cinema 

Stanley Kubrick

Publications, Research & Presentations

* “A Clockwork Orange and its Representations of Sexual Violence as Torture: Stanley Kubrick and Francis Bacon.” In Matt Melia and Georgina Orgill (eds.). Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange. New York: Palgrave, 2023: 265-284. 

 

• “A Maverick on the Streets: Bill Cunningham and the Documentary Process.” In

Elena Caoduro and Boel Ulfsdotter (eds.). Documenting Fashion. Edinburgh

University Press, 2023

 

• “Terrorism and Gender in Eye in the Sky and Zero Dark Thirty: Women and Girls

on the War Front in Contemporary Cinema.” In Elena Caoduro, Karen Randell

and Karen A. Ritzenhoff (eds.). Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century, Chapter

11. New York: Palgrave, 2021.

 

• “Feminism and Kubrick.” In: Nathan Abrams and Ian Hunter (eds). The

Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021: 169-

178. https://www.amazon.com/Bloomsbury-Companion-Stanley-

Kubrick/dp/1501343629/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&

 

  • Ritzenhoff, Karen A. and Hannah D’Orso. “The New Wave in the New Millenium: Joker, Taxi Driver, Nostalgia, and Trumpian Politics.” In Gregory Frame and Nathan Abrams (eds.) New Wave, New Hollywood. Bloomsbury Press, 2021: 179-200.
Awards & Grants

Finalist for the Excellent In Teaching Award at Central in 2020 and 2013

Memberships & Affiliations

Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)

Courses Taught

Comm 220 History of Film

Comm 255 Visual Communication

Comm 380 Women and Film

Comm 382 American Cinema

Comm 455 Global Visual Communication

Comm 487 TV Documentary

Comm 485 Topics in Media and Culture: Life in Prison in Film and TV (fall 2020)

Comm 496 Field Studies in Communication

Comm 490 Internship Program

Hon 210 Western Culture: Trauma and Identity in Literature and Film

Hon 230 Post 9/11 Literature and Film