Ben Singer

Ben Singer is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in film history and melodrama studies. His research explores early cinema, sensory experiences in modernity, and genre evolution.

Research Focus:

• Silent era cinema and cultural contexts
• Melodrama as cultural form
• Sensory dimensions of modernity
• Early film exhibition practices

His publications demonstrate deep historical analysis of film culture, particularly examining relationships between technological change, sensory perception, and narrative conventions. Recent work focuses on D.W. Griffith's moral frameworks and 1910s American cinema.

Education: PhD in Cinema Studies (NYU, 1996), BA (Harvard, 1985).