Michael Anthony Turcios

Michael Anthony Turcios serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University's School of Communication. He maintains faculty affiliations with the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research and the Latina and Latino Studies Program, while actively contributing to the Northwestern Prison Education Program through specialized course instruction.

Education:

• PhD in Cinema and Media Studies, University of Southern California

Professor Turcios specializes in nontheatrical film histories, ephemeral media, and relational anticolonial/antiracist movements. His research centers Indigenous media practices, Chicanx/Latinx film cultures, and postcolonial media studies, with emphasis on cultural preservation, land reclamation, and fabulation as restorative methods across Palestine, the Americas, and Indian Ocean contexts. His methodology integrates archival analysis of nontraditional audiovisual texts with examinations of community-based screenings and non-filmic moving image practices.

His recent publications reveal consistent thematic trajectories examining state violence at borders, reparative cinematic frameworks, transnational solidarity movements, and critiques of extractive capitalism. These works bridge film history with critical race theory, environmental justice, and decolonial praxis, demonstrating how marginalized communities deploy media for resistance and cultural continuity.

As a first-generation scholar from a working-class background, Professor Turcios prioritizes mentorship for historically excluded students. His teaching portfolio includes graduate seminars in Screen Cultures and undergraduate courses on Documentary Film History, Indigenous Studies and the Moving Image, Third World Cinemas, and Race and Space in Film and Media, with significant engagement through the Northwestern Prison Education Program.