Melissa Croteau Image

Melissa Croteau, Ph.D.

Professor of Film Studies
Film Program Lead

Office Phone: (951) 343-4327
E-mail: mcroteau@calbaptist.edu
Office Location: W. E. James Building, Room 362
Office Hours: Meetings held virtually through Webex by appointment. Please email to arrange for a meeting.

Degree Major Emphasis Institution Year
Ph.D. English and Film Studies Claremont Graduate University 2004
M.A. Shakespeare Studies: Text, Performance, & Media Shakespeare Institute - University of Birmingham (UK) 1994
B.A. English and Theology Biola University 1992
  • Courses Taught

    World Cinema
    Film Theory and Criticism
    Film History
    Major Directors
    Adaptation and Intertextuality
    Independent Film and Counter-Cinema
    Introduction to Film Studies
    Literature and Film
    Shakespeare on Film
    Renaissance Literature and Culture
    Literary Theory
    Women Writers/Women's Voices
    Shakespeare
    Humanities

  • Academic Areas & Scholarly Interests

    Global Cinema, Film and Aesthetic Theory, Japanese Cinema, Indian Cinema, Screen Shakespeares, Critical Theory

  • Teaching Experience at Institutions Other than CBU

    Prof. Croteau has taught at a dozen institutions of higher education over the past twenty-five years, including all levels of the California state system (UC, Cal State, and community college). She also has taught at a number of private universities and colleges, such as Woodbury University, Geneva College, and Biola University. She has been teaching at CBU since 2008.

  • Research, Presentations, & Publications

    BOOK IN PROGRESS
    I currently am under contract with Routledge for a new monograph, titled Transcendence and Spirituality on Film: The Expression of Spiritual, Human, and Ecological Transcendence in Japanese Cinema.

    PUBLICATIONS
    Re-forming Shakespeare: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Bard in Millennial Film and Popular Culture.
    Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013.

    Co-editor of Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Vision of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

    Editor of Reel Histories: Studies in American Film. Los Angeles: Press Americana, 2008.

    BOOK CHAPTERS
    “Bollywood: Macbeth, Othello,” in Shakespeare and Emotion. Ed. Katharine Craik,
    Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 136-50.

    “Nature versus Nurture/Wilderness versus Words: Syncretizing Binaries and the Getting of
    Wisdom in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007),” in A Companion to the Biopic. Ed. Deborah Cartmell and Ashley D. Polasek, Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.

    “Wicked Humans and Weeping Buddhas: (Post)Humanism and Hell in Kurosawa’s Ran,”
    in Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel, Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin, and
    Victoria Bladen. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

    “Surfing with Juliet: The Shakespearean Dialectics of Disney’s Teen Beach Movie (2013),” in Shakespeare /
    Not Shakespeare. Ed. Christy Desmet, Natalie Loper, and Jim Casey. Palgrave, 2018, pp. 241-58.

    "London's Burning: Remembering the Gunpowder Plot and 17th Century Conflict in V for Vendetta," in The English Renaissance in Popular Culture: An Age for All Time. Ed. Gregory Semenza. Palgrave, 2010,
    pp. 89-102.

    “Introduction: Beginning at the Ends,” in Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations. Ed. Melissa Croteau and Carolyn Jess-Cooke. McFarland,
    2009, pp. 1-27.

    “Celluloid Revelations: Millennial Culture and Dialogic ‘Pastiche’ in Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000)” and “Introduction: Beginning at the Ends,” in Apocalyptic Shakespeare: Essays on Visions of Chaos and Revelation in Recent Film Adaptations. Ed. Melissa Croteau and Carolyn Jess-Cooke. McFarland,
    2009, pp. 110-31.

    "Aki Kaurismäki's Hamlet Goes Business (1987): A Socialist Shakespearean Film Noir Comedy," in
    Shakespeare's World/World Shakespeares: The Selected Proceedings of the VIII World Shakespeare Congress Brisbane 2006. Ed. Richard Fotheringham and Christa Jansohn. University of Delaware Press, 2008, pp. 193-205.

    PRESENTATIONS (recent)
    “Guns, Rasa, and Roses: Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Ram-Leela (2013), a ‘Desi’ Romeo and Juliet.”
    Shakespeare on Screen in the Digital Era Conference. Montpellier, France. 26-28 September 2019.

    “‘Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight?’: Bollywood, Shakespeare, and the Crossing of
    Emotional and Generic Boundaries in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool and Omkara.”
    European Shakespeare Research Association Conference. Rome, Italy. 9-12 July 2019.

    “Tinseltown Histories: Casey Wilder Mott’s Indie A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2018) in Hollywood.”
    Shakespeare Association of America Annual Conference. Washington, DC. 17-20 April 2019.

    “Cosmic Wholeness: Transcending Disintegration in I Wish (Hirokazu Kore-eda 2011).”
    Asian Studies Development Program National Conference, Nashville, TN. 7-9 March 2019.

    “Shakespeare and Posthuman Worlds in Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven — An Ecocritical Excursion.”
    Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies. Guadalajara, Spain. 9-11 May 2018.

    “Le Songe d’une Nuit d’Eté of Ambroise Thomas: L’éclat at the End of the Tunnel.” European Shakespeare
    Research Association Conference. Gdansk, Poland. 27-30 July 2017.

    “Ancient Aesthetics and Current Conflicts: Indian Rasa Theory and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014).”
    Shakespeare Association of America Annual Conference. Atlanta, GA. 5-8 April 2017.

    “Wicked Humans and Weeping Buddhas: Humanism and Hell in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985).”
    World Shakespeare Congress. Stratford-upon-Avon & London, UK. 30 July – 6 August 2016.

    “Sacred Space, Cosmic Trees, and Labyrinths: Hierophany in Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1958).” Shakespeare Association of America Annual Conference. New Orleans, LA. 23-26 March 2016.

    AWARDS AND HONORS
    National Endowment for the Humanities Institute Fellow, “Buddhist East Asia: The Interplay of Religion, the
    Arts, and Politics,” The East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, May 28 – June 22, 2018.

    Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity/CCCU Faculty Development/Collaborative Research
    Seminar Member, “Society and the Rule of Law in China,” Shanghai and Beijing, China,
    2-16 June 2011.

    National Endowment for the Humanities Institute Fellow, India: Past and Present, July 2008