Nathan Lee is a scholar, critic, and curator specializing in contemporary global cinema. In addition to his academic work, he has published extensive film criticism in The New York Times, Film Comment, The Criterion Collection, The Village Voice, and NPR among other outlets. Before coming to Hollins, he taught at Emory University, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Bard College. He is Affiliate Faculty in the departments of Art History and Gender and Women’s Studies.
Areas of Expertise
- Film Studies
- Film Theory
- Criticism and Critique
- Queer Cinema
- David Cronenberg
Courses Taught
- Introduction to Film
- Cinema and Modernity
- Criticism and Critique
- Queer Cinema
- Feminist Cinema
- American Cinema
- Animation Studies
- Thematizing Artificial Intelligence
- David Cronenberg
Accomplishments
- Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Brown University (2017-2018)
- Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Culture and Media Studies Grant (2015, 2016)
- Creative Arts Council Grant, Brown University (2015)
Education
- Ph.D., Brown University
- M.A., Bard College
Publications & Articles
- “Dead in the Eye,” essay for The Criterion Collection edition of “A History of Violence,” 2025
- “Misery Loves Company,” Film Comment, March 25, 2025
- “The Animal Effect in David Cronenberg,” Journal of Environmental Media, Vol. 4 No. 2, 2024
- “Everything is Terrible,” Film Comment, July 22, 2024
- “No Fucks Given,” essay for The Criterion Collection edition of “The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy,” 2024
- “Erogenous Zones,” essay for The Criterion Collection edition of “Querelle,” 2024
- “Cinema at the End of the World,” Metrograph Journal, November 22, 2023
- “Alone in the Dark,” The Broadcast, July 6, 2023
- “This Charming Man,” Film Comment, November 20, 2023
- “Exterminate All Rational Thought: The Animal Effect in David Cronenberg” (forthcoming in the Journal of Environmental Media, 2023)
- “Plastic Fantastic,” Film Comment, July 31, 2023
- “Alone in the Dark,” Broadcast, July 6, 2023
- “Insurrectional Evolution: The Cronenbergian Revisited,” Art Papers, Vol. 46, No. 1, Fall 2022
- Physician, Heal Thyself,” Film Comment, 2022
- “Talking to Myself: On The Image Book and the Legacy of Jean-Luc Godard,” Literary Hub, 2022
- “Inland Empire,” 4Columns, 2022
- “Mind Games,” Film Comment, 2021
- “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” Film Comment, 2021
- “Terminal Velocity,” Metrograph Journal, 2021
- “The Call of Cage-Thulu: On the Unspeakable Frenzies of Nicolas Cage,” Post 45/Contemporaries, 2021
- “American Avant Garde’s Cinema of the In-Between,” Millennium Film Journal, Spring/Fall 2020
- “Postcritique and the Form of the Question: Whose Critique Has Run Out of Steam?” Cultural Critique, Vol. 108, Summer 2020
- “Transforming Nihilism” in Unwatchable, eds. Nicholas Baer, Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Gunnar Iversen, Rutgers University Press, 2019