Adam CapitanioCapitanio portrait

Areas of Interest

  • Popular Culture
  • Film and Media
  • Genre Literature and Media
  • Sports

Biography

I was born and raised Long Island, New York, and developed a passion early on for many of the things I now study and take “seriously.” In 1998, I began my undergraduate work at New York University, finishing my BA in Cinema Studies, with a minor in Literature, in 2001. The following year I received a Dean’s Fellowship to pursue my Master’s Degree in Cinema Studies at the same institution.

After completing my Master’s, I took a year off to decide if academia was really what I wanted to pursue, and a year in the “real world” confirmed that it was indeed. After spending a great deal of time in the insular discipline of Film Studies, I wanted to open up my scholarly possibilities for my doctoral work. Michigan State’s American Studies program offered that opportunity, and so I’ve been here since the fall of 2005.

My research interests are varied, but not entirely unrelated. Film is still my primary realm of expertise and interest, and most of what I do is focused on genre films and on European cinema. I have a broad interest in popular and mass culture of the 20th century United States, but most of my research is specifically on genre literature, especially horror and science fiction. Finally, the cultural history of comics books and baseball round out my range of research interests.