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Robin L. Murray

Professor of English and Women's Studies, Film Studies Minor Coordinator, and Eastern Illinois Writing Project Director

Office: 3351 - Coleman Hall
Email: rlmurray@eiu.edu
http://castle.eiu.edu/filmmnor/

Robin Murray's Vita
Office Hours:  TR 2:00-3:30; W 1:00-3:00

Robin L. Murray teaches courses in film studies, English education, and multicultural American literature. Her research and service interests are in ecocriticism and film studies, women's studies, and composition theory and practice. She has co-authored four books: Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge (SUNY Press 2009), That’s All Folks?:Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features (U Nebraska Press 2011), Gunfight at the Eco-Corral: Western Film and the Environment (U Oklahoma Press 2012), and Everyday Ecodisasters in Documentary and Fictional Films (U Nebraska Press 2014). Her work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Jump Cut, and other film and literary journals.

She also directs the Eastern Illinois Writing Project (www.eiu.edu/~easternnwp) and coordinates the Film Studies Minor.

Frequently Taught Courses

English 3504, Film and Literature
English 4904, Studies in Film
English 5585, Eastern Illinois Writing Project Summer Institute
English 3401, Methods of Teaching Composition
Engiish 3402, Methods of Teaching Literature
English 3705, Multicultural American Literature

Education

PhD, University of Toledo; M.A., The Ohio State University; B.A., Oakland University

Speakers Bureau

For more information, please visit the Speakers Bureau Webpage.

• Environment/Going Green

Research

Film 
Ecocriticism

Publications

Publications
Books:
 
Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge.  SUNY Press. 2009. (with Joseph K. Heumann).
 
That’s All Folks?: Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features. University of Nebraska Press, 2011. (with Joseph K. Heumann)
 
Gunfight At the Eco-Corral: Western Cinema and the Environment. University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. (With Joseph K.Heumann).
 
 
Articles:
 
“Activism in Mountaintop Removal Films: Turn off the Lights for Sustainability.” Interactions: Studies in Communication in Culture. Forthcoming Summer 2013. (with Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“James Bond and Water Wars in Contemporary Film: A New Eco-Warrior?” With Sustainability and Justice For All volume. Forthcoming. (with Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Give Me Shelter: The Ecology of the Home in Blue Vinyl and Libby, Montana.” Jump Cut. Forthcoming  (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Hatari Means Danger: Filmic Representations of Animal Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo." Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Forthcoming. (with Joseph K. Heumann)
 
“Flipper? We’re Eating Flipper?: Documenting Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics at Sea.” Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film. Under contract with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Forthcoming.
 
“Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition.” Studies in Documentary Film.  6.1 (Winter 2012). (with Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Bambi andMr. Bug Goes to Town: Nature, With or Without Us.” Winter 2011.Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“The Burning Season: Environmentalism Versus Progress?” A Little Solitaire: John Frankenheimer on the American Screen. Ed. Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer. Rutgers University Press. 2011: 117-128. Print.
 
"Women Miners, Women Protesters: A Neglected Image." The Artist as Activist in Appalachia. Ed. Amy Childers-Mansfield and Joyce E. Stavick. University Press of North Georgia, 2011. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Fast, Furious, and Out of Control:  The Erasure of Natural Landscapes in Car Culture Films.”  Framing the World. Ed.Paula Willoquet. University of Virginia Press, 2010. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Oil Drilling and the Search for the ‘Golden Shrimp’: The Myth of Interdependence in Oil Drilling Films.” Jump Cut. 53. 2011. Web. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Mining Westerns: Seeking Sustainable Development in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. The Journal of Ecocriticism. July 2010. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Passage as Journey in Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals: A Narrative of Environmental Adaptation.” Jump Cut. Summer 2010. With Joseph Heumann.
 
“WALL-E: From Environmental Adaptation to Sentimental Nostalgia” Jump Cut. Spring 2009. (With Joseph K. Heumann).
 
“Ecocriticism and Interdisciplinarity: Giving a Feminist Voice to Nature.” Open Words. Fall 2009.
 
“Poetry Introduction.” Illinois English Bulletin. Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011.

Conference Presentations

Selected Conference Presentations, 2009-Present:

“"Don’t Fence Me In: Ecology and Free-Range and Fenced Ranching in Shane and Sea of Grass." Film and History
     Conference. September 2012.
 
“The UPA and the Environment: A Modernist Look at Urban Nature.” Popular Culture Association Conference. April
     2012. Boston, MA.
 
“A West and a Western that Works?” Popular Culture Association Conference. April 2012. Boston, MA.
 
“Rankin Rankin/Bass Studios, Nature, and the Supernatural: Where Technology Serves and Destroys.” Embarras Valley
     Film Festival. EIU. November 2011.
 
“We’re Eating Flipper?: Documenting Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics at Sea.” July 22, 2011. Rachel Carson
     Center Moving Environments Workshop. Munich, Germany. Teleconference.
 
“We’re Eating Flipper?” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference.  June 2011.
     Bloomington, Indiana.
 
“Silent Film in Illinois.” Embarras Valley Film Festival. November 2010.
 
“From Snow White to Lady and the Tramp: What Walt Disney Does for the Animal Rights Movement.” Graphic
     Engagement Conference. Purdue. September 2010.
 
"That's All Folks?: The Greening of Animated Film Production." Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR. June 2010.
 
“Mountaintop Removal Documentaries: Environmental Externalities Or Hope?.” Popular Culture Conference. St.
      Louis, MO. April 2010.
 
“The Oil Wells of Baku: The First Eco-Disaster Film?” Cinema and Climate Change Conference. University College of
      London (via weblink). December 2009.
 
“Bambi and Mr. Bug Goes to Town: Nature With or Without Us.” English Department Colloquium. October 2009.
 
“Ecology and Specacle in Oil Wells of Baku: Close View: The First Eco-Disaster Film?” Cinema and Climate Change
     Conference. London, UK. December 11, 2009. Teleconference.
 
“Cape Town Affair: Right Wing Noir, South African Style.” The Annual International Crime, Media and Popular Culture
     Studies Conference. Indiana State University. October, 2009.
 
“A New Look at Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge.” Association for the Study of Literature and the
     Environment. Victoria, BC. June 2009.
 

Funding & Grants

Grants
 
National Writing Project SEED Professional Development Grant 2012 ($20,000), funding for high-need school
            programs in Sullivan High School.
National Writing Project SEED Leadership Grant 2012 ($20,000), continuing funding for Eastern Illinois Writing
            Project and Institute Day.
Coles County Arts Council grant to Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival 2012 ($250).
National Writing Project Grant: 2011 ($35,000) continuing funding for Eastern Illinois Writing Project.
National Writing Project Grant: 2010 ($47,000) continuing funding for Eastern Illinois Writing Project.
National Writing Project Grant: 2009 ($46,000) funding our Eastern Illinois Writing Project.
National Writing Project Site Grant: 2008 ($30,000) funding our Eastern Illinois Writing Project.
Illinois Arts Council Grant, 2009: Funding for Embarras Valley Film Festival.
EIU Summer Research Grants: 2009, 2008, 2000, 1999.
Redden Grant: 2008 for Film Studies Minor
Faculty Development Travel Awards and College of Arts and Humanities Travel Awards: Various semesters. 1998-pres.
Oklahoma Humanities Council Grants: 1997 and 1998.
 

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