Gaylyn Studlar, Ph.D., director of the Program in Film and Media Studies in Arts & Sciences, has been named the David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities.
Studlar
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Studlar, who joined the faculty of Arts & Sciences in January 2009, has written widely on the representation of gender in film, film genres, transmedia practices in popular culture and American film history, especially from the 1910s through the 1950s. Her research centralizes feminist approaches to film theory and history and also is attuned to exploring the relationship between film and the other arts.
“Gaylyn Studlar is a prominent scholar as well as an exceptionally talented academic leader,” said Gary S. Wihl, Ph.D., the Hortense & Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences. “Since her arrival on campus a little more than a year ago, Gaylyn has been a driving force in directing the future of film and media studies and in launching our new Graduate Certificate in Film and Media Studies. The David May Professorship confers recognition on her many achievements as a scholar and teacher.”
The formal installation ceremony will take place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 24, in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall. A reception for Studlar will immediately follow.
For more information or to RSVP, please call (314) 935-4785.
Gaylyn Studlar
Studlar is the author of “This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age” and “In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic.” In addition, she has co-edited four anthologies: “John Ford Made Westerns,” “Visions of the East,” “Reflections in a Male Eye: John Huston and the American Experience” and “Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster.” Her work has been translated into several languages.
Studlar recently completed articles on masculinity in the documentaries of Michael Moore; mother/daughter discourse in 1920s Hollywood fan culture; the textual queering of Elizabeth Taylor as a child star; and on silent era “vampire” Theda Bara. She is currently completing a book, “Precious Charms: The Juvenation of Female Stardom in Classical Hollywood Cinema,” for the University of California Press.
Studlar earned a doctorate in cinema studies from the University of Southern California, where she also earned a master of music in cello performance. She previously taught for 13 years at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, serving as the Rudolf Arnheim Collegiate Professor of Film Studies and served as director of the film and media studies program. Prior to that, she spent eight years on faculty at Emory University.
David May
The professorship is named for David May, a German immigrant who launched a successful retail empire that gave rise to the St. Louis-based department store Famous-Barr.
Born near Kaiserslautern in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, May came to the United States as a teenager in 1866. After learning the dry goods business from a cousin in Indiana, May moved west to open a store in partnership with his brothers-in-law — Moses, Louis and Joseph Shoenberg — in the booming mining town of Leadville, Col. They soon expanded to other Colorado boomtowns and also opened a store in Denver.
In 1892, May moved the company headquarters to St. Louis and began consolidating a number of stores under his management. His purchase of the Famous Shoe and Clothing Store and the William Barr Dry Goods Company yielded the name Famous-Barr, which soon became the company’s flagship.
Before his death in 1927, May ensured that his son, Morton J. May (1914-1983), learned the retail business, appointing him company president in 1917. Morton May continued his father’s work, building The May Department Stores Co., into a retailing giant while also supporting a number of educational and medical institutions.
In 1965, Morton May honored his parents by establishing the David and Rosa May Endowment Fund at Washington University to support the creation of two named professorships. The Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities is currently held by Paul Michael Lützeler, Ph.D., professor of German and comparative literature, both in Arts & Sciences. The David May Distinguished University Professor previously was held, from 1979-99, by William H. Gass, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the humanities.