Martin Louis Johnson

Martin Louis Johnson is an Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the history and cultural impact of local films in the United States, blending film studies with critical race theory, feminist historiography, and queer theory. He holds a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University (2012), an MA in Folklore from UNC Chapel Hill (2005), and an AB in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University (2001).

Johnson authored Main Street Movies: The History of Local Films in the United States (Indiana University Press, 2018), which examines how local films (1909–1975) allowed communities to visualize themselves within cinema spaces. His articles appear in Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, and Early Popular Visual Culture, among others.

He has received major grants including a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2015–2016) and the Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholarship (2019). Courses taught span global cinema history, queer film, media studies, and research methodologies.

Johnson’s work bridges cultural studies and media history, interrogating how cinema shapes—and is shaped by—social structures, identity politics, and technological shifts. His current research expands into digital humanities and posthumanist frameworks.