LeiLani Nishime was recently appointed adjunct professor of Cinema & Media Studies, and for so many reasons.
Professor Nishime’s research focuses on racial representation with particular focus on visual culture and Asian American cultural production. Her monograph, Undercover Asians: Multiracial Asian Americans in Visual Culture (Illinois, 2014) asks the question “Why do we see race?” and answers it through case studies in film, television, advertising, museum display, and fine art. She has co-edited two anthologies that put emphasis on media studies: East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture (NYU, 2005) and Global Asian Popular Cultures (NYU, 2016). In addition, her work has appeared in scholarly journals including the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and Critical Studies in Media Communication as well as in edited collections such as Mixed Race Hollywood (NYU, 2005), Film Theory and Criticism (Oxford, 2016), and the Routledge Companion to Asian American Media (Routledge, 2017).
Professor Nishime has worked with CMS students in her courses on Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Media (COM 389), Asian American Media (COM 488), and Visual Culture Studies (COM 519). She has also provided mentorship and guidance to several of our graduate students. “This has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my association with CMS,” according to Nishime. “Reading with graduate students and the productive discussions that have followed have helped me think in new ways.”
“While my academic and intellectual home is in Communication,” she says, “I appreciate the opportunity to speak with other media scholars rooted in the humanities and the legacies of cinema studies.”