BIO
Professor~ Scholar of Film, Black Visual and Popular Culture
Screenwriter/Content Developer
Co-Founder, Daughters of Eve Media Inc.
Speaker/Moderator~Public Intellectual~Film Festival Curator
Since childhood, Michele Prettyman voraciously consumed stories about black life, history, and culture and which her parents shared with their children. It was no surprise then, that as an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, she paired her interests in black culture and with her growing curiosity in the spheres of documentary and feature film, leading to B.A. degrees in Afro-American Studies and Radio/TV and Film. Riveted by the power of storytelling, but compelled to challenge what writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would later describe as ‘the danger of the single story’ about black life and culture, she embarked on a career that would pursue her own creative voice, help students unlock the power of race and mediated culture, and imagine innovative approaches to the study of race, culture and consciousness.
After completing her undergraduate degrees, Michele delved into production working as a Production Coordinator/Manager for National Geographic TV and as a freelancer for an independent production in Barbados. Years later as a graduate student and mother, she would study film and digital production at Georgia State University, completing a Master’s degree in Film, Video and Digital Imaging. In this hybrid program, she was trained in production and film theory and she completed a screenplay thesis entitled “Muddied Waters.” Compelled to pursue a PhD, Michele continued on at Georgia State immersing herself in moving image and critical race/visual culture studies. Her time at Georgia State was fruitful as she would teach and design a number of courses and begin cultivating her voice as a scholar and public intellectual. In 2012 she completed her Ph.D. in Communication with an emphasis on Moving Image Studies.
While race, film and visual culture studies are central to Michele’s research, pedagogy and scholarship, the core of Michele’s life work is her interest in spirituality and the ways in which spiritual and cultural practices facilitate healing from personal and racial trauma, build community, and enable creativity and well-being. Michele has studied a number of spiritual principles and traditions which have shaped her own growth and her influenced her research, which she describes as “a quest to understand how we might explore how consciousness is mediated through race, film and visual culture."
Michele 's recent writing and research includes a number of diverse projects. She co-edited a ‘Close Up’ series in Black Camera journal on the ‘New York Scene’ of black independent filmmakers and contributed to The Lemonade Reader, a dynamic anthology on the impact of Beyoncé's magnum opus. Additionally, she published an essay on hip hop and music video culture as part of an ‘In Focus’ series in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.
Her work has been presented at diverse forums including the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Transforming Public History Conference, the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP), the World Picture Conference, the National Communication Association, the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, and the National Council of Black Studies. She has published work in a range of journals and online platforms including: Black Camera (An international film journal), the literary journal Callaloo, liquid blackness: a research project on blackness and aesthetics and In Media Res: A Media Commons Project. She is also a contributor and a member of the editorial board for the liquid blackness journal of aesthetics and black studies.
In 2017, she was a co-recipient of a grant which funded a historical documentary storytelling project entitled: “In Search of a Shared History: Making Black Lives Visible at Jarrell Plantation.” This project will ultimately be part of a larger Africana studies digital research project entitled, "Digitizing Black Life and Culture in Middle Georgia."
A co-founder of Daughters of Eve Media (DOE), a media consulting company Michele created with her sister Terri Bowles, has partnered with the internationally renowned American Black Film Festival (ABFF) and helped develop its Kathy Collins Women in Film Initiative. In 2013, she coordinated events around the Atlanta tour of LA Rebellion filmmakers in partnership with UCLA’s film archive, Emory University and Georgia State University. Additionally, she was a co-curator of the College Town Film Festival; a partnership between Mercer, Wesleyan College and Middle Georgia State University and she served as the Artistic Director for the inaugural Tubman African American Film Festival in 2019.
In 2020 after over twenty years in the South, Michele accepted a position at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in the Department of Communication and Media Studies. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Department of African and African American Studies.
As a teacher, scholar, media consultant, and writer developing her own content, Michele works to expand our understanding of the meditated universe and to provide support for her students, storytellers, and the broader community.
EDUCATION
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
Ph.D. Communication~Moving Image Studies, 2012
M.A. Communication~ Film/Video/Digital Imaging, 2006
University of Maryland-College Park
B.A. Radio/TV/Film, 1992
B.A. Afro-American Studies, 1992
Benjamin Banneker Scholar
Ronald E. McNair Postbaccaulaureate Scholar
Recent Academic Positions
Fordham University
Department of Communication and Media Studies
Department of African and African American Studies (Affiliate Faculty)
August 2020-Present
Department of Journalism and Media Studies
Aug 2016-July 2020
TEACHING
African American Cinema
Global Cinemas
Film and TV History
Digital Storytelling
Race, Gender, and Media
Screenwriting
Intro to Non-Fiction Film
Film and Southern Identity
RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
Areas of Research
African American Cinema and Visual Culture
Spirituality in Black Film and Visual Culture
Digital Storytelling and Social Justice
Experimental Cinemas
Black Independent Film & Aesthetics
Women Filmmakers and Expansive Cinema
Journal/Anthology Publications
(Peer Reviewed)
2025 (Forthcoming) “Love and Filmmaking as Self-Possession: Camille Billops and James Hatch’s Older Women and Love” Feminist Media Histories: An International Journal ~ Special Issue on Camille Billops and James V. Hatch
2024 (Forthcoming) “Music in the Air: Spirituality and Revival in Summer of Soul (Or … When the Revolution Could Not be Televised) in Docalogue: Summer of Soul, Eds. Kristin Fuhs and Jaimie Baron. Routledge: New York and London: Routledge January 2024.
2023 “Out of Form Into Being: Black Women Filmmakers and Experiments in Expansive Cinema” in Black Cinema & Visual Culture: Art and Politics in the 21st Century, Eds. Ed Guerrero and Artel Great, Routledge: New York and London: Routledge March 2023.
2022 “Doing It, Fluid: Elissa Blount Moorhead and the Making of a Moving Image Community” liquid blackness journal, a journal on blackness and aesthetics (Duke University Press) 6:1 • April 2022.
2020 “The Persistence of Wild Style: Hip Hop and Music Video Culture at the Intersection of Performance and Provocation.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies “In Focus” Issue 59.2 (Winter 2020).
2020 “Flash(es) of the Spirit: Images of Black Life as a Spiritual Encounter” World Records Journal Volume 3: 2020. Web. https://worldrecordsjournal.org/on-the-collection-flashes-of-the-spirit-images-of-black-life-as-a-spiritual-encounter/
2019 "To Feel Like a Natural Woman: Aretha, Beyoncé and the Ecological Spirituality of Lemonade." in The Lemonade Reader, Editors Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin, Routledge: New York and London, 2019.
2019 "Introduction: A Scene of New Worlds." Black Camera 10, no.2 (2019): 52-68. (w/co-author Nicholas Forster)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/blackcamera.10.2.05.
2017 "No Medicine for Melancholy: Cinema of Loss and Mourning in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter." Black Camera 8, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 81-103. doi:10.2979/blackcamera.8.2.05.
Online Publications (Refereed)
2023 “The Power of the Return.” In Media Res: A Media Commons Project. Web. https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/power-return
2020 "Modes of Black Liquidity: Music Video as Black Art" In Media Res: A Media Commons Project: “JCMS: In Focus- (Apr 2020) Web. http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/“-persistence-“wild-style”-hip-hop-and-music-video-culture-intersection-performance-and
2014 “Hip hop and the Southern Aesthetic” (Sept 2014) Curator/Contributor, In Media Res: A Media Commons Project. Web. http://mediacommons.org/imr/2014/08/29/dirty-south-and-other-visual-aesthetics
2014 “Creating Space.” In “Symposium: reflections and movements.” liquid blackness 1, no.3 (July 2014) Web. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebeab0729212022c4b5b91d/t/5ee62251f25ac108a925ebcf/159214 0372076/LB3+PSR.pdf
2014 “The Liquidity of the Virtual Body: A Conversation with Nettrice Gaskins.” In “Blackness, aesthetics, liquidity.” liquid blackness 1, no. 2 (April 2014) Web.
2013 “Daughter of the Rebellion.” In “liquid blackness on the L.A. rebellion” liquidblackness 1, no. 1(November 2013) Web. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebeab0729212022c4b5b91d/t/5ee542983ef4864f3e2937ab/1592083098291/LB1_Daughter+of+the+Rebellion.pdf
Book Reviews
2017 Review of “Queering Post-Black Art” by Derek Murray, College Art Association, March 2017. Web. http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/2882#.WMwgLGW-iC0\
2009 Black Fire Reignited.” Review of New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement. Eds. Lisa Gail Collins and Margo Natalie Crawford. Callaloo 32.1 Feb 2009. 303-306. Print.
2008 Review of Screens Fade to Black by David Leonard and Dark Designs and Visual Culture by Michele Wallace. In Scope: An Online Journal of Film & TV Studies Issue 12 Oct 2008 Web. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2008/october-2008/book-rev-oct-2008.pdf
Editorial Work
2021- Pres. Editorial Board Member liquid blackness; a journal of aesthetics and
black studies
2020 – Pres. Editorial Board Member Short Film Studies
2020 – 2021 Reviewer for Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo- American Studies
Dec. 2018-19 Co-editor of a ‘Close Up’ edition on “The New York Scene” in Black Camera: An International Film Journal Vol. 10 No. 2
2016 Reviewer Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture (published by Duke UP)
liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies
Contributor, Editorial Board Member
(Published by Duke University Press)
liquid blackness online publications:
“Daughter of the Rebellion.” In “liquid blackness on the L.A. rebellion” liquid blackness 1, no. 1 (November 2013) Web.
“The Liquidity of the Virtual Body: A Conversation with Nettrice Gaskins.” In “Blackness, aesthetics, liquidity.” liquid blackness 1, no. 2 (April 2014) Web.
“Creating Space.” In “Symposium: reflections and movements.” liquid blackness 1, no.3 (July 2014) Web.
Media Consulting
Co-Founder, Daughters of Eve Media Inc.
https://www.dofemedia.com
Engaging Audiences, Empowering Storytellers
Since 2013, Daughters of Eve Media has presented annual events for the American Black Film Festival, including panel discussions and screenings. In 2016, DoE Media inaugurated Where We Enter: The Kathleen Collins/ABFF Women’s Initiative, a program that highlights cinematic works and scholarly film contributions by women of color.
The collaboration between DoE Media and ABFF has spotlighted talented writers, actors, documentarians, independent producers and directors whose work depicts compelling stories that explore critical historical and social issues.
Sampling of Panels and Media Events
Fordham University~ Department of African and African American Studies
Black Lives Matter and The Political Landscape- Feb 2021
Macon Film Festival, August 2019
Discussion with actress/filmmaker Gabourey Sidibe
CollegeTown Film Festival, 2019
Co-Curator/Moderator
Theme: Street Life
Discussion of Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (Dir. Sara Driver, 2017)
American Black Film Festival, 2018 Miami
"Black Women and Experimental Storytelling"
Michele moderates at far left, with Ayoka Chenzira, Taura Musgrove, Natalie Bullock-Brown and Terri Prettyman Bowles
CollegeTown Film Festival, 2018
Co-Curator/Moderator
"Women of the Night: A Film Noir Exploration"
Discussion of Devil in a Blue Dress (Dir. Carl Franklin, 1995)
American Black Film Festival, 2017 Miami
Conversation with Tracy Heather Stain about her film, Lorraine Hansberry Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart
CollegeTown Film Festival, 2017
Co-Curator/Moderator
Theme: "On the Margins"
Discussion of Middle of Nowhere (Dir. Ava DuVernay, 2012)
American Black Film Festival 2016 Miami
"Kathleen Collins Women's Film Initiative"
Michele is flanked by co-founder Terri Bowles, The Root's Donna Byrd and filmmakers Lorna Lowe and Crystal Roberson.
American Black Film Festival, 2014 New York
Conversation with Muta'Ali, director of Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee
American Black Film Festival 2013 Miami
Michele, seated far left, hosts panel discussion with Spike Lee, actress Salli Richardson-Whitfield, director, David E. Talbert and casting director Kim Hardin.
Emory University, LA Rebellion Film Series 2013 Atlanta
Michele hosts a discussion with legendary independent filmmaker, Haile Gerima. This event was part of the Liquid Blackness/ LA Rebellion film series.
American Black Film Festival, 2012 Miami
Black Women in Hollywood Panel
Michele moderates, seated far right.
Panelists include: actresses, Malinda Williams and Tracey Heggins, screenwriter Elizabeth Hunter, producer Angi Bones and casting director Tracy "Twinkie" Byrd.
Digital Storytelling
In Pursuit of a Shared History: Black Lives and Jarrell Plantation
Director, Writer, Researcher
Produced through Mercer University's Quality Enhancement Plan grant funding, this project is a collaboration between Dr. Prettyman and her friend and colleague Dr. Matt Harper. Dr. Harper's research at Jarrell Plantation and Dr. Prettyman's expertise in race, visual culture and media along with two talented undergraduate students, created a twenty-two minute historical storytelling project.
GET IN TOUCH
Staying Connected
Michele Prettyman (Beverly)
Daughers of Eve Media Page
@
michelebeverly 
Michele Prettyman Beverly
