Richard Abel. Abel has taken a circuitous route to become a historian of silent French and American cinema: an undergraduate in forestry and wildlife management and then English, a doctoral student in Comparative Literature, and a partly self-trained professor of cinema studies and cultural studies. He came to the University of Michigan in 2002 as the Robert Altman Collegiate Professor of Film Studies and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Screen Arts & Cultures.

Abel's essays have appeared in dozens of journals (including Cinema Journal , Screen , Film Quarterly , Film History , Sight & Sound , French Cultural Studies , and Studies in French Cinema ). His books include French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929 (Princeton 1984); French Film Theory and Criticism, 1907-1939: A History/Anthology , in two volumes (Princeton 1988); The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914 (California 1994); Silent Film (Rutgers 1996); and The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910 (California 1999). With Rick Altman he co-edited The Sounds of Early Cinema (Indiana 2001); he also served as general editor of The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge 2005). His latest book, Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914 (California), was published in 2006. Forthcoming books include Early Cinema and the “National,” co-edited with Giorgio Bertellini and Rob King (John Libbey), and Menus for Movie Land: Newspapers and the Movies, 1911-1915 .

Awards and honors:

2005 Theatre Library Association Award for best book on recorded performance:

The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema .

1999 Kraszna-Kraus Moving Image Book Awards: finalist and special commendation for

The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910.

1998 SCS Katherine Singer Kovács Award for best essay in cinema studies, 1995-1997:

"Pathé Goes to Town: French Films Create a Market for the Nickelodeon."

1995 Theatre Library Association Award for best book on recorded performance:

The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914.

1989 Jay Leyda Prize in Cinema Studies: French Film Theory and Criticism, 1907-1939.

1985 Theatre Library Association Award for best book on recorded performance:

French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929.