Edward Bowen


Edward Bowen
  • Assistant Professor of Italian
  • Ph.D.

Contact Info

Wescoe Hall, Room 2068
1445 Jayhawk Blvd
Lawrence, KS 66045-7594
Office Hours:
Thursdays 1:30-2:30pm, Fridays 2-3pm
or by appointment

Biography

Edward Bowen specializes in Italian film history, film exhibition, urban politics, and contemporary Italian culture. His work is aligned with a subfield of film studies known as ‘New Cinema History,’ in which scholars examine a wide-range of primary documents, beyond the film text, in order to better understand the social, commercial, and political aspects of moviegoing. Some of Bowen’s work examines the business practices of exhibitors, the attachments that spectators have to venues, and the political potential of movie theaters. His most recent project is a co-edited volume (with Damien Pollard) titled Film Exhibition: The Italian Context (Oxford: Legenda, forthcoming in 2024), that will be the first book in English exclusively dedicated to film exhibition history in Italy. Bowen’s chapter in the volume focuses on the career of exhibitor Giovanni Amati and the practices of his dominant cinema chain in Rome. Along with Rémi Lanzoni, Bowen co-edited and contributed to the volume The Cinema of Ettore Scola (Wayne State University Press, 2020). He has published in the following journals: Bianco e Nero, Textual Cultures, Cinema e storia, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, and Studies in Documentary Film. Bowen enjoys teaching all levels of Italian language, and he has designed numerous interdisciplinary courses on cinema, literature, history, migration, and urban studies. Several of his courses are cross-listed with the Department of Film & Media Studies. Bowen has co-directed the Summer Language Institute in Florence several times, and he enjoys helping students to find internships and scholarships in Italy. In April 2023, he received the Jessie Marie Senor Cramer & Ann Cramer Root Research and Teaching Award.

Education

Ph.D. in Italian, Indiana University
M.A. in Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A. in History, Wake Forest University
B.A. in History, James Madison University

Teaching

Recent Undergraduate Courses Taught

FMS/ITAL 330: Cinematic Rome

FMS/ITAL 331: Mafia Movies

ITAL 340: Migration to and from Italy

ITAL 336: Italy and the Italians

Selected Publications

Film Exhibition: The Italian Context, edited by Damien Pollard and Edward Bowen. Oxford: Legenda, 2024. Co-authored introduction. https://www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Film-Exhibition

“Conquering Film Exhibition in Postwar Rome: The Practices of Giovanni Amati's Cinema Chain.” In Film Exhibition: The Italian Context. Oxford: Legenda, 2024.

Passione d’amore e lo sbarco su Broadway.” Bianco e Nero 601 (October 2021): 189-91. Special issue dedicated to Ettore Scola, edited by Jean Gili.

“The Editorial Principles of Anton Federigo Seghezzi and his Giuntina Project.” Textual Cultures 13.2 (Fall 2020): 133-171.

The Cinema of Ettore Scola, edited by Rémi Lanzoni and Edward Bowen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2020. Co-authored introduction. https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/cinema-ettore-scola

“Ettore Scola’s Legacy: A Statesman for Italian Cinema.” In The Cinema of Ettore Scola (2020).

“Tales of Courage: Trade Stories of Italian Independent Cinema.” In Experimental and Independent Italian Cinema, edited by Anthony Cristiano and Carlo Coen. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020

 “C’era una volta il cinema Corso. Storia di una sala cinematografica romana durante il fascismo.” Cinema e storia. Rivista di studi interdisciplinari, Vol. 1, (2018): 103- 23.

“‘Take Notice of the Red Light!’ A History of Adult Cinemas in Rome.” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 5:1 (2017): 3-21.