Thom is a film & media studies educator, film critic, film programmer, and part-time playwright based in Ann Arbor, MI, USA, where he has taught at the University of Michigan and the College for Creative Studies (Detroit). He holds an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University-Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. He has developed and taught film & media studies courses at other leading U.S. higher-ed institutions, including the University of Colorado-Boulder and the University of Denver. He has regularly written on film for Cineaste magazine, the Chicago Tribune, AlterNet.org, and the Conversation.com, et al. He awaits the end of the Internet (as we know it) with optimism.
Areas of Expertise
The Fascinating Story Behind Peter Pan and How It Became So Famous
This article explores J.M. Barrie’s enchanting fairy tale which follows Peter Pan and his adventures with Wendy Darling, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook.
Why Did Baudrillard Claim That “America Is the World Center of the Inauthentic”?
Jean Baudrillard’s America went in search of “astral America,” its deserts, highways, empty spaces, and crowded, lonely streets. What did he find there?
Why H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” Is a Timely Warning to the World
Wells’ The Time Machine didn’t only set time traveling as a mainstay of science-fiction. It also reads as a timely warning to the world.
Who Was Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Übermensch”?
What is the concept of “Übermensch” or “overman” developed by German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche? This article explains the importance of “Übermensch” within Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Bikers, Outlaws, and Mobsters: A Brief History of New Hollywood
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new generation of filmmakers rescued the Hollywood studios from a financial fade-out. What was this New Hollywood?
A Journey Through Dante’s Inferno: A Brief Guide
Dante’s Inferno is hailed as a medieval masterpiece and a precursor to the Renaissance, with T.S. Eliot having ranked it alongside Shakespeare.
Anne Frank Heroically Lives on Through Her Diaries
Few diaries are as treasured as the one written by Anne Frank, a precocious, gabby girl living in Holland during World War II.
Voltaire’s Candide: Exploring the Philosophy of Optimism
How did Voltaire take the 18th-century Enlightenment’s rose-colored outlook and paint it into a black comedy titled Candide?
A New Generation of Women: What Was the Jazz Age Flapper?
Look up in the sky! No, it’s not Superwoman. It’s the Jazz Age flapper, one of the highest-flying social creations of the 1920s.
Is Oedipus Rex the Mother of All Drama?
Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (aka Oedipus the King) … Is it the mother of all Western drama? The father? Or both?
The History of Method Acting in Hollywood in 8 Lessons
Learn how the Stanislavsky school of acting, alias the “Method,” matriculated to the movies in the years after World War II, in eight methodical lessons.
Great or the Greatest? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the rich are different from you and me.” In The Great Gatsby, he set down exactly how different.