Robert Allen, Professor, Joint Appointments with History and Communication Studies

Contact Information

Greenlaw Hall 312, CB #3520
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
(919) 962-5165
rallen@email.unc.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1977
M.A., University of Iowa, 1975
A.B., Davidson College, 1972

Research Interests and Honors

Robert Allen's teaching and research interests are broad and interdisciplinary. His research has focused on the history of American popular entertainment and popular culture. He has written on the history of U.S. radio and television (Speaking of Soap Operas, 1985), film history and historiography (Film History: Theory and Practice, 1985), and American popular theater of the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture, 1992). He is also the editor of To Be Continued: Soap Operas Around the World (1995) and of two editions of the widely-used television criticism anthology, Channels of Discourse and Channels of Discourse, Reassembled (1987, 1994). He is the co-editor of The Television Studies Reader (2004) and Going to the Movies: Hollywood and the Social Experience of Cinema (2007). His teaching interests include the history of American film and media, globalization and national identity, the family and social change in America, and comparative social and cultural history (especially American and Australian histories). He is currently working on a digital humanities project, “Going to the Show,” which documents the history of moviegoing in North Carolina through maps, photographs, newspaper ads, and other materials. He is on research leave during the 2008-09 academic year as a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Fellow.