Blake Collins
Ph.D Student, Cinema Media Studies
Blake Collins (he/him) is a writer & scholar from Alexandria, VA. Prior to graduate school, he had a career in editorial, and participated in trans advocacy at hospitals, schools, and conferences.
Building off his research into South Korean New Wave cinema during his MA at USC, Blake is interested in the changing conditions of distribution for “foreign,” non-English language, and multilingual film in America today. His dissertation examines the arrival of new, independent film distributors that have both faithfully continued the legacy of, and boldly innovated on, prior models of arthouse “foreign” film distribution. Examining the concepts of auteurism, national filmmaking, art cinema, and cinephilia, Blake is invested in excavating the contradictions that have always attended the promotion and circulation of so-called “foreign” films in America, and how the internet and streaming are changing the mediascape they move in. He has a secondary interest in horror genre studies, and an obsession with subtitles and captions.
Research Interests
Critical media industry studies, independent film distribution, national/transnational film studies, auteurism, streaming, subtitles
Selected accomplishments and professional work
Collins, DB (2024). “Beyond The 1-Inch-Tall Barrier: Unpacking Parasite’s US Reception.” Book chapter in anthology Squid Game and Beyond: Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary Asian Popular Culture (Vol II). Palgrave McMillian, eds. Ritzenhoff, Kim, Dharshani, & Aleem.
Collins, DB (upcoming, 2025). “Netflix’ Art Cinema Experiment: Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma & ‘The Global Auteur.’” Paper to be presented at Pop Culture Association (PCA) Conference, New Orleans, LA.
Collins, DB (2024). “Meet the Producers: Fun, Fragmentation & (Mis)Identifications in Current Transmedia TV.” Paper presented at Society of Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS) Conference, Boston, MA.
Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship (UCLA, 2022)
Collins, D, & Collins, M (2017). “At the Broken Places: A Mother & Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces.” Family memoir for “Queer Perspectives” series at Beacon Press.
Education
MA, East Asian Studies, USC
BA, Visual Media Arts – Media Production/Screenwriting, Emerson College
