Dr. Rachel Schaff

Dr. Rachel Schaff is assistant professor of Media Studies at Mercer University. She was previously the postdoctoral teaching fellow in screen studies in the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.

Education

• Ph.D., Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, Moving Image Studies, The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• M.A., Film Studies, Columbia University
• B.F.A., Film and Television Production, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

Specialty

Documentary studies, East European history and culture, film and media historiography, film theory, global melodrama, and Holocaust and genocide studies.

Professional Interests

Dr. Schaff’s research addresses questions of melodrama across various cinematic forms and national contexts in relationship to how Holocaust memorialization is institutionalized. Her peer-reviewed scholarly essays have appeared in Afterimage, Cinema et Cie, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Screen, Spectator: The USC Journal of Film and Television, and Studies in Eastern European Cinema.

Recent Publications

• Koel Banerjee and Rachel Schaff, “Nothing Else Besides a Father: Logan and the Paternal Melodrama” Screen Vol. 63, no. 3 (Autumn 2022): 367-385.https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjac027
• Rachel Schaff, “Report on the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2021 Virtual Conference,” Afterimage Vol. 48, no. 3 (September 2021): 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2021.48.3.4.
• Rachel Schaff, “Classifying Czech Melodrama: Mrs. Morality Sweeps Through the Protectorate.” Special Issue: “Film Coproduction in Eastern Europe from 1949 to the Present.” Studies in Eastern European Cinema (August 2020): 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2020.1792077.

Contact Dr. Rachel Scaff

(478) 301-2979
schaff_rl@mercer.edu
Office: Center for Collaborative Journalism, Room 115