Following a competitive international search, Gina Marchetti has been named chair of the Department of Humanities and Media Studies (HMS) in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. A longtime educator and researcher who focuses on women filmmakers and contemporary trends in Asian and Asian American film culture within a global context, she arrives at Pratt Institute from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) where she serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures. She will assume the chair role on August 1, 2022. During July, Emily Beall, HMS assistant chair, will be an acting chair, taking over for Acting Chair Suzanne Verderber who has led the department for the past two years.
“Professor Marchetti has extensive experience in curriculum development and teaching innovations,” said Helio Takai, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “She is a leading figure in film and media and has produced a rich scholarship with a focus on East Asia.”
As chair, Marchetti will oversee a department that comprises 75 faculty and that educates every undergraduate student through its core curriculum, which focuses on critical thinking and writing. HMS has a cross-disciplinary curriculum that engages students in how art, culture, literature, and media form and transform an interconnected world. Along with its Core Humanities, Architecture Writing Programs, and Writing Across the Curriculum, the department offers undergraduate minors and graduate degrees.
“I am delighted to have this opportunity to serve as chair of the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute,” said Marchetti. “My goals as an administrator overlap with my dedication to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in teaching and research. I have a strong commitment to social justice that informs my approach to administration.”
A faculty member at HKU since 2003 when she arrived there as a Fulbright Scholar, Marchetti has held several positions at the department, school, faculty, and university levels. In addition to being director of HKU’s Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, she is deputy chair of the Common Core, convener of the Global Issues Area of Inquiry, chair of the Committee on Gender Equality and Diversity in the Faculty of Arts, and chair of the Master of Arts in Literary and Cultural Studies program. As a professor in HKU’s Department of Comparative Literature, she teaches and develops classes on film, gender and sexuality, critical theory, and cultural studies. Her honors for teaching include prestigious awards from HKU and Hong Kong’s University Grants Council.
Her decades of academic experience also include teaching positions at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, China; Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; Ithaca College in New York; and the University of Maryland-College Park, among other institutions. Her “Hong Kong Cinema through a Global Lens” MOOC (massive open online course) has involved students from around the globe.
Marchetti is a leading author on world cinema and its work as a creative industry. Her extensive publishing career includes several books: Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction (1993), From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens (2006), The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema (2012), and Citing China: Politics, Postmodernism, and World Cinema (2018). Additionally, she has co-edited several anthologies on film, identity, digital media, and more. Many of her more recent publications focus on post-1997 Hong Kong women filmmakers.
She holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Film Division, and a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University.