Dennis Bingham

Dennis Bingham grew up in a working class Catholic family in Columbus, Ohio, one that spoke of Jimmy Stewart as a family friend. When he saw the movie listings for "James Stewart" in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) as a young child he thought "that's a pretty strange way to spell 'Jimmy.'" Reading from age three, his parents expected him to grow up to be a priest, but at eight years old, he noticed his first cinematic technique, a distance created by Cinemascope in _Music Man, The_ (1962). He went to Ohio State University and took some film courses which were part of the engineering department at the time, but majored in English, with creative writing, literature, and theatre (including acting on stage) as emphases. Falling in love with the golden age of film criticism with writers like Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris. He knew that was what he wanted to do, which he did locally for several years before fulfilling a dream to go to NYU Film School to get his M.A. He then returned to Ohio State for doctoral work, and became an assistant, after which he discovered what he really wanted to do was teach. He is a Professor of English at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, where he is head of the Film Studies division. His focuses in research have been in feminist film theory, gender, masculinity, and biopics. He is the author of "Whose Lives Are They Anyway: The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre" (Rutgers University Press, 2010). He also mentored Katherine Ellison (II), Scott Hutchins, Bonnie Williams, Jonathan Knipp, Tess McClernan, Westley Felton, Damien Belliveau, Anne Laker, and Melinda Labita.