Rebecca A. Adelman, Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies
Since her arrival at UMBC in 2009, Rebecca Adelman’s academic career has been marked by prolific and prestigious scholarly accomplishments and an outstanding record of internal and external recognition for her research.
Adelman’s research explores spectatorship, transparency, and visual ethics as they intersect with militarized violence in a post-September 11th world. Her book, Beyond the Checkpoint: Visual Practices in America’s Global War on Terror (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) maps the visual circuits linking the terrorized American nation-state, its citizens, and its enemies. The book’s innovative approach to studying and teaching visual cultures of conflict has garnered praise from reviewers and has been cited widely.
She has published 10 articles in top journals; an array of peer-reviewed book chapters, essays, and encyclopedia entries; and has shared her work in op-eds, blog posts, and radio appearances. She is currently at work on two new book projects: an exploration of intersections of fantasy, violence, and sentimentality in contemporary American militarization (under contract with Fordham University Press), as well as a collaborative study that examines images of conflict zones that go beyond dramatic scenes to capture everyday images of living, dying, and surviving.
Adelman’s work breaks important ground in the study of citizenship and culture, and offers bold theoretical and methodological approaches to students of media and visual culture studies. Her research helps them better understand the complex political and ethical stakes of creating and consuming images during wartime.
Adelman received her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.