Max Tohline
Curriculum Vitae
JANUARY 2022
Education
Ph.D.
Interdisciplinary Arts, Ohio University, 2015
M.A.
Film, Ohio University, 2009
B.A.
English, University of Missouri—Rolla, 2007
Employment
2021-present
State Technical College, Linn, MO, Academic Resource Center
2015-2020
Missouri S&T, Assistant Professor of Art and Film
2012-2015
Missouri S&T, Lecturer in Art and Film
Publications
2022
“Seems Like Old Times: Staging, Control, and (Mis)memory in Annie Hall,” a video essay in Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration, Vol. 06, No. 02 (2021). https://journals.kpu.ca/index.php/msq/article/view/1545
2021
“Why is Reverse Motion Funny?: Happy End and the Comic Potential of the Cinematographic Mechanism” at Journal of Film and Video 73.4, Winter 2021, pp. 3-14. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jfilmvideo.73.4.0003
2021
“A Supercut of Supercuts: Aesthetics, Histories, Databases,” a feature-length video essay on the supercut and related modes of compilation editing, at Open Screens Journal. https://www.openscreensjournal.com/article/id/6946/
2020
“Tracking Mass Ideology on IMDb’s Top 250: How Shifts in Societal Values Appear in the Popular Film Canon” at Bright Lights Film Journal. https://brightlightsfilm.com/tracking-mass-ideology-on-imdbs-top-250-how-shifts-in-societal-values-appear-in-the-popular-film-canon/
Honors & Awards
2021
“A Supercut of Supercuts: Aesthetics, Databases, Histories” awarded Outstanding Excellence in Research at the Documentaries Without Borders Film Festival, May 2021: https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0004410/2021/1
2019, 2017, 2014
Missouri S&T Outstanding Teaching Awards
2017
Class of ’42 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Miner Alumni Association
Grants
2018, 2016, 2014
Tournées Film Festival grant to curate, license, screen a slate of Francophone films at Missouri S&T
Invited talks
2016
“Gender and the Periodic Table,” invited talk for the American Society for Engineering Education’s LGBTQ Virtual Community of Practice’s LGBTQ Leadership Training meeting on 7 December, 2016, based on my blog post with 150,000+ notes: https://10oclockdot.tumblr.com/post/185291567038
2016
“Strangers to Ourselves: the politics of the zombie as metaphor,” an invited talk for S&T’s HVZ group’s first annual ZEDTalks, 8 April 2016
Conference Papers
2022
“What Makes An Act of Criticism Successful?: A Collaborative Approach to the Deformative Video Essay,” given at BAFTSS Annual Conference: Collaboration and Cross-pollination, April 20, 2022 as a video introduction (https://vimeo.com/701078679/227d239813) accompanied by a link and collaborative discussion
“The Palindrome, the Crystal Image, and Articulations of the Cinematic Code,” given at PCA/ACA Annual Conference, 14 April 2022, as a video paper, here: https://vimeo.com/698879271
2021
“Re-Reading Time: The Emergence of Reverse Motion as a Narrative Technique in Post-Classical Cinema,” given at PCA/ACA Annual Conference, 4 June 2021, as a video paper, here: https://vimeo.com/558962736
2019
“How to Convert User Data into a Picture of Belief: Tracking Mass Ideology on IMDb’s Top 250” at the 41st Annual Humanities and Technology Association Conference in Rolla, MO, 9 November 2019
“The Confessional: Epistemology and Spiritual Doubt in Coppola’s The Conversation” at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., 19 April 2019
2018
“The Shot and the Tranche: Fragmentation, Narrative Levels, and Meaning in The Big Short” at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference in Indianapolis, IN, 30 March 2018
2014
“Get Your Ass to Mars: Total Recall and the Influence of Game Aesthetics on Blockbuster Films” at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL, 16 April 2014
2012
“The Dancers are Horses: Degas, Photography, and the Symbolic Restoration of Sight” at Interdisciplinary Arts Graduate Student Conference, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 14 April 2012
Teaching Experience
Missouri S&T, 2012-2020
A Study of Film (Introductory Film Studies) (2 sections, every semester Fall 2012—Spring 2020)
Documentary Film (Fall 2014, Spring 2018)
Experimental Film & Video (Spring 2015, Fall 2017)
Film and Philosophy: Artificial Consciousness (Fall 2014, Fall 2019)
Film and Philosophy: Comedy (Fall 2016)
Film and Philosophy: Documentary and Truth (Spring 2020)
Film and Philosophy: Inception (Spring 2013)
Film and Philosophy: Time (Fall 2018)
Foundations of Media Communication (Fall 2013, Spring 2016)
Great Directors (Spring 2017, Fall 2018)
Principles of Creativity and Design through Film (Spring 2016)
Visual Culture and Aesthetics (Spring 2014)
Ohio University, 2007-2012 (listing only courses designed and sole-taught as TA)
Interdisciplinary Art Appreciation (as “megasection” with ~150 students: Spring 2011—Spring 2012)
Interdisciplinary Art History (Spring 2010—Winter 2011)
Christianity in Film (Fall 2008)
The Films of 1968 (Summer 2008)
Mentorship
2019
History undergraduate student Mackenzie Shields, Missouri S&T’s First Year Research Experience Program, “Can shifts in IMDb movie rankings trace or predict shifts in social attitudes more broadly?”
Service
Missouri S&T Free Film Festival
Director, 2012-2017
Committees
Missouri S&T Campus Art Committee, Chair, 2017-2020
Missouri S&T Campus Art Committee, Member, 2012-2017
Chancellor’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, Member, 2017-2019
Advisory Committee for the Campus Performing Arts Series, Member, 2017-2020
Renaissance Student Award selection committee for ALP, Member, 2016-2019
Blackboard (LMS) Review Committee, Member, 2013-2014
Student Organization Advisor
Advisor for Missouri S&T’s Academic Competition Organization, 2016-2020
Advisor for Tau Beta Sigma, Delta Xi chapter, band service sorority (co-ed), 2017-2020
Advisor for Miner Movies, student film club, 2017-2018
Co-advisor of S&T Philosophy Club, 2012-13
Search Committees
Search committee for Art lecturer, 2018
Search committee for tenure-track Philosophy professor, 2017
Search committee for administrative assistant, 2016
Miscellaneous
Missouri S&T’s Opening Week Lunch with Faculty sessions, 2013-2019
Producer of video promotional material for Leach Theatre’s Campus Performing Arts Series events and other special events, 2014-2020
To the Community
Led art museum tours and film screenings/discussions with teens at Navig8, a residential substance abuse facility, 2018-2019
Media
Video Essay “A Supercut of Supercuts: Aesthetics, Histories, Databases” (2021) listed four times (plus an honorable mention) in Sight & Sound’s poll of the Best Video Essays of 2021 (https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-video-essays-2021).
Also featured in Criterion Daily, Film Threat, Kottke, FilmScalpel, and elsewhere.
Video Essay “Alfred Hitchcock’s 39 Stairs” (2017) reposted by Kottke, Storythings, Neatorama, and others.
Video Essay “Editing as Punctuation in Film” (2015) listed three times in Fandor’s poll of the Best Video Essays of 2015. (https://web.archive.org/web/20151231013827/https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/poll-the-best-video-essays-of-2015).
Reported in S&T news and The Rolla Daily News; reposted by IndieWire, NoFilmSchool, Kottke, FilmmakerIQ, and others.
Video Essay “Symmetry in Wes Anderson’s Editing” (2015) reposted by FilmmakerIQ, The Film Stage, 20 Questions Film, CHUD, and others.
Video Essay “The Art of Editing in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (2013) reposted by NoFilmSchool, FilmmakerIQ, Cinephilia and Beyond, Rope of Silicon, Filmmaker Magazine, Cinetropolis, Motion Arts Pro Daily, and others.
References
Upon request