Karl Schoonover

Karl Schoonover is a Professor of Film & Television Studies and Director of Research at the University of Warwick, Faculty of the Arts. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University and has established himself as a leading scholar in film theory, queer cinema, and Italian cinema studies.

His educational background includes advanced degrees from Brown University, where he developed expertise in Modern Culture and Media. Schoonover's academic journey has positioned him at the forefront of contemporary film scholarship, particularly in the areas of global queer cinema and Italian neorealism.

Schoonover's research explores the relationship between cinema aesthetics and political change, with specific interests in film theory, queer cinema, the representation of toxic waste, non-western cinemas, and Italian cinema. His work examines how cinematic forms engage with questions of realism, temporality, excess, and queerness, particularly how queer cinema makes the world anew through both overtly queer film practices and world cinema's frequent engagement with queerness as a means of establishing global scale. His scholarship demonstrates how queerness allows the world to be visible, known, and palpable across diverse cultural contexts.

His publications reveal a consistent engagement with the political dimensions of cinema, particularly how films navigate global flows while engaging with intimate desires. The articles span from 2014-2021 and demonstrate his evolving interests from Italian neorealism to contemporary queer cinema, waste representation, and the geopolitical dimensions of film. His work consistently connects cinematic form with broader social, political, and environmental concerns, creating a distinctive scholarly voice that bridges film theory with contemporary political issues.

• Society of Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovács Book Award for Queer Cinema in the World (2016)

Schoonover has supervised PhD students on film theory, film aesthetics, world cinema, queer television, African cinema, Italian film history, and experimental European cinema. He has served as co-investigator on significant research projects including the AHRC Major Research Project 'Producers and Production Practice in the History of Italian Cinema, 1949-1975' (2016-2019) and the AHRC-funded 'Global Queer Cinema' project (2011-2013). His current book project examines cinema as a medium defined by its relationship to waste, analyzing how films use trash to refashion cultural production and value politics.

As an active member of scholarly communities, Schoonover co-founded the CinemArts scholarly interest group within the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and serves on editorial boards of the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and Film Criticism. His collaborative work with Rosalind Galt has been particularly influential in reshaping understandings of queer cinema's global dimensions.