Samantha N. Sheppard, PhD
Associate Professor
Chair, Department of Performing and Media Arts
Cinema and Media Studies
Cornell University
ABOUT
Dr. Samantha N. Sheppard is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies and Chair in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She writes extensively on issues of race, gender, and representation in film, television, and digital media. She teaches courses on global cinema, sports films, contemporary television, African American film history, popular culture, women filmmakers, and blackness on screen. She was selected as a 2021 Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Learn more in BIO
WRITING
Dr. Sheppard is the author of The Basketball Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming Oct/Nov 2026) and Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen (University of California Press, 2020) and coeditor of the anthologies Women, Sisters, and Friends: The Selected Plays and Screenplays of Kathleen Collins (University of California Press, 2027), Sporting Realities: Critical Readings of the Sports Documentary (University of Nebraska Press, 2020), and From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry (University Press of Mississippi, 2016).
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She is currently working on her third monograph, A Black W/hole: Phantom Cinemas and the Reimagining of Black Women's Media Histories, a project for which she was named an Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
She has written for popular presses, including The Atlantic, Flash Art International and Los Angeles Review of Books. For more of her academic and popular writing, see PUBLICATIONS
SPORTING BLACKNESS
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THE BASKETBALL FILM
Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen examines issues of race and representation in sports films, exploring what it means to embody, perform, play out, and contest blackness by representations of Black athletes on screen. To learn more, visit SPORTING BLACKNESS
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The Basketball Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History offers an expansive and engaging portrait of how basketball has been imagined, represented, and mythologized across popular culture, revealing what the game continues to mean to audiences and players alike. To learn more, visit THE BASKETBALL FILM
EVENTS
Dr. Sheppard is a professional speaker, lecturer, and consultant on film, television, and media. She also hosts conversations and events with scholars and film and media industry professionals. She had been featured in documentaries, on Turner Classic Movies, and Amazon Prime. For past and upcoming talks, lectures, and conversations see SELECT PUBLIC EVENTS or view selected VIDEOS.
VOICES & VISIONS IN BLACK MEDIA
Dr. Sheppard organizes a lecture series that brings distinguished scholars to Cornell to discuss Black media. For past and upcoming lectures see VOICES & VISIONS
CONTACT
Contact Dr. Sheppard at sheppard@cornell.edu
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