Matthew Hipps

Matthew Hipps is a film historian with research and teaching interests in early cinema, animation, nontheatrical film and media, fan and audience studies, and film applications in immersive storytelling. His most recent research focuses on the confluence of blockbuster cinema and theme park movie rides, theories of embodied spectatorship, queer theory, and modes of alternative cinema exhibition. Matthew received his PhD in Film Studies from the University of Iowa, Master’s in Film Studies from Columbia University, and Bachelor’s in Communication with emphasis on Political Science and Motion Pictures from the University of Miami. Matthew previously wrote on silent cinema and was honored to be selected as a member of the Collegium at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in 2011. He has also worked in various teaching positions over the past decade, including at The Museum of the Moving Image, CUNY: Kingsborough Community College, Shenandoah University, and the University of Iowa. His past course topics include introductions to mass media, film theory, film analysis, world film history, and contemporary cinema, as well as more advanced courses on North American animation, film criticism, film franchises, blockbuster cinema, and alternative forms of cinema exhibition and spectatorship.
 
Selected Publications, Panels, and Presentations:
“Please Remain Seated: Theme Park Fandom and Queer Movie Ridership” Society of Cinema and Media Studies, 2024, “‘Twister: Ride it Out”: Movie Ride Systems, Peripheral Spaces, and Contemporary Theme Park Phantasmagoria” Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, 2022; “‘Ride the Movies!’: Theme Parks and Contemporary Spectatorship in Ride Films” University of Chicago Site/Seeing: Sites of Spectatorship, 2020; “From Hale’s Tours to Contemporary Movie Ride Experiences” Invited course lecture Moviegoing Histories, University of Iowa, 2020; “Unstable Optics: Perceptual Exhibitions of Materiality in Alain Resnais’ Early Works” Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Seattle, 2019; “Queer Travelogue, Tourism, and Homocapitalism: The Films of Pat Rocco” Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Toronto, 2018; “American Aerial Amusements: Theme Park Rides and National Vision” Craft Critique Conference, University of Iowa, 2017; “Pixar, Pixels, and Paper: The Digital Amalgam” Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, 2017; “Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light: Multiscalar Memory, Professional Memory, and Landscapes of Trauma” Crossing Borders Symposium on Rethinking Memory and Trauma: New Directions in Cultural and Visual Studies, University of Iowa, 2016; Poynter Institute’s Journalism Conference 2014; “The Ballade: Drift and Cinematic Deterritorialization within Pasolini’s Mamma Roma” San Francisco State University Film Conference, 2009; Contributing Writer, Women Film Pioneers Sourcebook, Vol. 2, eds. Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. NY, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2011.