Media and Communication Studies
Eric Dienstfrey
Eric Dienstfrey
Visiting Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies
Eric Dienstfrey researches the history of film, music, and sound media, specifically how new technology can both disrupt and reinforce an industry’s economic and aesthetic practices. His work has appeared in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Music, Sound and the Moving Image, Film History, Music and the Moving Image, The Velvet Light Trap, and the anthology Voicing the Cinema. His 2016 article “The Myth of the Speakers” won the 2017 Katherine Singer Kovács Award from the Society of Cinema and Media Studies.
Before joining the faculty at Ursinus, Eric taught at Catholic University, University of Arizona, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently completing a book for University of California Press, titled Making Stereo Fit, about the emergence of surround sound as a storytelling tool.
Department
Degrees
• B.A., Washington University in Saint Louis
• M.A. & Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching
Public Speaking
Global Media Technologies
Media, Emotion, and Morality
Asian Art Cinema
Media Production
Sound Design
Common Intellectual Experience
Research Interests
History of Technology
Media and Psychology
Sound Studies
Narrative Theory
South Korean Media
Iranian Cinema Cultures
Recent Work
Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2024. (forthcoming)
“Tape Recording Hollywood: The Inaudibility of New Film Sound Technology.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 16, no. 2 (2022): 101–127. (Project Muse)
“Under the Standard: MGM, AT&T, and the Academy’s Regulation of Power.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, no. 3 (2020): 23–45. (Project Muse)
“Monocentrism, or Soundtracks in Space.” In Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack, edited by James Buhler and Hannah Lewis, 229–44. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. (Project Muse)
“Media Dialogues.” The Velvet Light Trap 28 (2018): 43–60. (Project Muse)
“The Myth of the Speakers: A Critical Reexamination of Dolby History.” Film History 28, no. 1 (2016): 167–193. (Project Muse)