Harry M. Benshoff

Dr. Harry Benshoff's research interests include topics in film genres, film history, film theory, and multiculturalism. He has published essays on Dark Shadows fan cultures, blaxploitation horror films, Hollywood LSD films, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Brokeback Mountain. He is the author of Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (Manchester University Press, 1997). With Sean Griffin he co-authored America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies (Blackwell Publishers, 2004), and Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). He was also the co-editor of Queer Cinema: The Film Reader (Routledge, 2004). His most recent books include Dark Shadows (Wayne State University Press, 2011), A Companion to the Horror Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), and Film and Television Analysis: An Introduction to Theories, Methods, and Approaches (Routledge, 2015).

At UNT, Dr. Benshoff regularly teaches a wide array of film studies classes, including "Film and Television Analysis," "African American Film," "Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Film and Video," and "Gender and Sexuality in the Horror Film." He also teaches a graduate seminar in qualitative media theory every year, and a rotating series of "Film Authors" classes on such noted directors as David Cronenberg, Federico Fellini, Ken Russell, and Robert Altman.

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Dr. Benshoff earned a BA in English from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., in 1985. He attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia for almost three years before he decided to follow his primary interest in life: film and media studies. He then earned an MA and a PhD in Critical Studies at the University of Southern California's prestigious School of Cinema-Television. He taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for three years before coming to UNT.