Alison Griffiths

Alison Griffiths is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College's Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, with a joint appointment at the CUNY Graduate Center. An internationally recognized scholar, her research bridges film history, visual anthropology, and media theory, significantly influencing studies of ethnographic cinema, prison media, and immersive technologies.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University
• M.A. in Film & TV from University of London
• P.G.C.E. in Education from University of London
• B.A. in Drama & English from University of Leicester

Griffiths' research explores the cultural politics of visual representation across historical and contemporary media. She examines how technologies from 19th-century panoramas to modern VR shape perceptions of space, time, and cultural difference. Key themes include:

• Carceral media: Prison film exhibition and the ethics of incarcerated spectatorship
• Expedition cinema: Colonial legacies in museum-sponsored travel films
• Medieval interfaces: Pre-cinematic visual culture and digital medievalism
• Indigenous sovereignty: Decolonial approaches to Sámi and Native American archives

Her publications demonstrate consistent interdisciplinary innovation, with recent work analyzing virtual reality through medieval cartography, amateur film as cultural memory, and Everest expeditions as cinematic spectacles. Thematically, her scholarship connects institutional power structures with sensory experiences of media immersion.

Major honors include:

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2018)
• Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Australia (2024)
• Katherine S. Kovacs Award for Best Book (2003)
• ACLS and Waterhouse Family Institute grants
• SCMS Best Anthology Award (2012)

She actively mentors graduate students in film and media studies at CUNY, supervising MA theses on topics from television criticism to documentary ethics. Current grants support projects on Sámi visual sovereignty and the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial archives, continuing her commitment to community-engaged scholarship.