Sarah O’Brien
EDUCATION
PhD, Comparative Literature with specialization in Film, University of Toronto, 2021
MA, Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, 2007
BA, summa cum laude, English and Spanish, University of Florida, 2005
EDITORIAL WORK
Editor and Founder, Sarah O’Brien Editing, 2020–present
Developmental Editor, Ideas on Fire, 2023–present
Copyeditor, Duke University Press, 2024–present
Copyeditor, University of Georgia Press, 2024–present
Peer Reviewer, PMLA, JCMS, ISLE, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Society and Animals, Animal Studies Journal, Humanities, and Studies in Popular Culture, 2016–present
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Assistant Professor (General Faculty), Writing and Rhetoric Program, 2017–2021
Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, Writing and Communication Program, 2014–2017
Sessional Lecturer and Writing Instructor, University of Toronto, 2013–2014
PUBLICATIONS
Book
Bits and Pieces: Screening Animal Life and Death in Film and Television (University of Michigan Press, 2023)
Articles, Peer-reviewed Journals
“Sticky Matter: The Persistence of Animals as Allegory in Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga and La mujer sin cabeza,” Screen 58, no. 4 (December 2017): 458–476.
“Why Look at Dead Animals?” Framework: Journal of Cinema and Media 57, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 32–57.
“Nous revenons à nos moutons: Regarding Animals in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep,” Cinema Journal 54.3 (Summer 2015): 21–42. Collected in From Street to Screen: The Cinema of Charles Burnett, edited by Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall, Studies in the Cinema of the Black Diaspora Series (Indiana University Press, 2020).
Chapters, Edited Volumes
“‘That’s You’: Reflections on Human-Animal Doublings in Atlanta’s Televisual Satire,” in Greater Atlanta, edited by Derek C. Maus and James J. Donahue. University of Mississippi Press, 2024.
“Being Struck: On the Force of Slaughter and Cinematic Affect,” coauthored with Nicole Shukin, in Animal Life and the Moving Image, edited by Michael Lawrence and Laura McMahon. Palgrave MacMillan/British Film Institute, 2015. Review by Ted Geier, Parallax 23, no. 1 (Sept. 26, 2016): 123–128.
Writing on Pedagogy
“Voices Rising: Translating Methods to Teach Atlanta,” coauthored with Ruth C. Yow, Atlanta Studies. November 17, 2017.
“Attaining the Text?: Teaching Annotated Video Essays in the Multimodal Classroom,” TechStyle, December 14, 2015.
Book Reviews
“The Pig Stays in the Picture: Visual/Literary Narratives of Human-Animal Relationships.” Review of Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines, Susan McHugh. Reviews in Cultural Theory 3.1 (Feb. 2012).
Review of Memorias del pueblo: la guerra civil española contada por testigos de ambos bandos, edited by Amparo Hurtado Díaz. España Contemporánea: Revista de Literatura y Cultura XVII, No. 2 (2004): 114–15.
Miscellaneous
“Place and Voice in Bear 71,” Curator’s post for Interactive Documentary theme week. In Media Res, September 2, 2014.
“What’s So Gross About Pink Slime?” Curator’s post for Food Media theme week, In Media Res, October 14, 2013.
“Experiment as Plot,” Curator’s post for Breaking Bad theme week. In Media Res, September 9, 2013.
“Animals on the Loose, In the News!” Curator’s post for “I Can Haz Webcam” theme week. In Media Res, August 23, 2013.
“Recuperando espacios domésticos de la memoria colectiva: cuatro narrativas femeninas de la posguerra española,” Journal of Undergraduate Research 7, no. 3 (2006).
CONFERENCES
Invited talks
“Cabinets of Curiosity: Bringing Animals into the Home as Taxidermy and on Television,” Extraction: Resources, Objects, Images workshop at Boise State University, April 18, 2025.
Conferences and Panels Organized
Panel co-organizer and co-chair, “Tender Empiricisms and Weird Sciences” panel, American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Washington, March 27–29, 2015
Conference coordinator, American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Toronto, April 4–7.
Panel co-organizer and co-chair, “Alternative Spaces of Representation” panel, Canadian Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting, Carleton University, May 25.
Conference co-organizer, Centre for Comparative Literature’s Annual Graduate Colloquium, “Navigating Interdisciplinarity, Cultivating New Spaces of Comparison,” University of Toronto, March 16–17.
Research Presentations
“Cabinets of Curiosity: Tracing Creaturely Connections in Television and Taxidermy,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Virtual Conference, March 17–22, 2021 [originally accepted for 2020 conference in Denver]
“Cabinets of Curiosity: Tracing Creaturely Connections in Television and Taxidermy,” American Comparative Literature Association, Chicago, March 19–22, 2020. [cancelled]
“Animal Flows in Post-Network Television,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, March 13–17, 2019.
“Inhabiting Scarcity and Sprawl: Narrative Complexity and Spectacular Mise-en- scène in the Contemporary Detective Mini-series/Anthology Series,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago, March 22–26, 2017.
“Scientific Surrealism in Contemporary Documentary Film.” Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Annual Conference, Atlanta, November 3–6, 2016.
“Manipulable Mongrels in Fehér isten/White God.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Harvard University, March 17–20, 2016.
“Scientific and Surreal Ethnography in Memoirs of a Plague.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Washington, March 27–29, 2015.
“Can the First-Person Be Posthuman?” Film Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, May 27–29, 2014.
“Experimentation²: Testing Animals and Film Form.” Third European Conference for the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, “Technoscientific Developments,” Karlsruhe, Germany, November 28–30, 2014.
“Into the Deep: Underwater Documentaries and the Lure of Immersion.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, New York University, March 20–23, 2014.
“Sticky Matter: The Peculiar Substance of Animal Death in Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga and La Mujer sin cabeza.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Toronto, April 5–7, 2013.
“Why Look at Dead Animals?” Holtz Centre for Science and Technology Studies’ Conference, “Taking Animals Apart,” University of Wisconsin–Madison, May 31–June 2, 2012.
“Shocking Blows.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of British Columbia, March 31–April 3, 2011.
“Stripping the Figural in Sally Mann’s What Remains.” Department of English’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, “Animals and Animality Across the Humanities and Social Sciences,” Queen’s University, June 26–27, 2010.
“The Ethics and Aesthetics of Animal Slaughter.” Deakin University and the University of Melbourne’s Interdisciplinary Conference, “The Hunger Artist: Food and the Arts,” University of Toronto, August 19–21, 2009.
“Of Meat and Metaphor: Coterminous Worlds in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep.” Department of Comparative Literature’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, “Zoo,” Yale University, December 4, 2009.
“Between First and Third: Claire Denis’s Vendredi soir as a Model of Absently Embodied Spectatorship.” Canadian Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting, Carleton University, May 25, 2009.
Pedagogy Presentations, Workshops, and Roundtables
“Teaching Digital Composition with Mediathread,” Teaching with Technology Summit, University of Virginia, October 8, 2019.
“Handmade, Hands-On, and Low-Tech Practices in Media Pedagogy,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Toronto, March 14–17, 2018.
“Teaching Atlanta,” with Ruth C. Yow, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Wayne State University, Detroit, June 20–24, 2017.
“Socio-technical Approaches to Sustainable Community Development in Atlanta: A Roundtable with Students, Teachers, and Staff from Georgia Tech,” Atlanta Studies Symposium, Clark Atlanta University, April 26, 2017.
“Teaching Atlanta Digitally,” with Ruth C. Yow, Digital Local Pedagogies Symposium, Emory University, Atlanta, February 3, 2017.
“Teaching and Technology in Media Studies,” FLOW Conference, University of Texas at Austin, September 15–17, 2016.
“Ecomedia: From Classroom to Community,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta, March 30–April 3, 2016.
“Experts Meeting Experts: Intersecting Professional Identities in the Communication Center,” Southern Writing Center Association, Columbus, GA, February 18–20, 2016.
“Literature/Film: Disciplinary Tensions,” annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, Vancouver, January 8–11, 2015.
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND GRANTS
Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Research Grant, sponsored by the Buckner W. Clay Dean of Arts & Sciences and the Vice President for Research, University of Virginia, 2020
Ignite Teaching Fellow, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia, 2018–2019
Learning Technology Incubator (LTi) grant, “Integrating Digital Annotation and Composition with Mediathread into the Writing Classroom (and Beyond),” University of Virginia, 2018–2019.
Collaborator, “Digital Animalities,” 2013–2018. Received 4-year Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada in 2015. Principal investigator: Jody Berland. Co-investigators: Matthew Brower, Thomas LaMarre, and Nicole Shukin. Collaborators: Giovanni Aloi, Robert McKay, Claire Molloy, Anat Pick, and Tom Tyler
Creating Sustainable Communities Grant, Affiliate Course Grant, Public Service Pathways Grant, and Faculty Trainer Grant, Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS), Georgia Tech, 2015–16
Chancellor Jackman Graduate Fellowship, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, theme year “Image and Spectacle,” 2010–2011
Doctoral Completion Award, University of Toronto, 2011–2012
University of Toronto Fellowship, Centre for Comparative Literature, 2006–2011
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
University of Virginia, 2017–2021
Faculty Seminar on the Teaching of Writing (four-day seminar for fifteen faculty members across disciplines, cotaught with T. Kenny Fountain, January2021)
Home Movies (second writing requirement course with community engagement component, Spring 2021, Summer 2021)
Writing Home (first-year required writing course with community engagement component, Spring 2021)
Writing about and with Film (writing course for Echols Scholars, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020)
Writing about Television (first-year required writing course, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020)
Writing about Documentary Film (advanced first-year required writing course, Spring 2018)
Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014–2017
Documenting Difference: Species, Race, and Gender in (Non)Fiction Film (first-year writing course affiliated with Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain, School
of Literature, Media, and Communication, Spring 2017)
Documenting Atlanta (first-year writing course affiliated with SLS, LMC, Fall 2016)
Ecomedia (first-year writing course affiliated with SLS, LMC, Spring 2016)
Ecocinema: Screening Sustainability at Georgia Tech (first-year writing course, LMC, Fall 2015)
Global Cinema (upper-division film course, LMC, Fall 2015)
Film Genres, Authors, and Audiences (first-year writing course, LMC, Spring 2015)
Writing with Animals (first-year writing course, LMC, Fall 2014)
University of Toronto, 2013–2014
The Politics of Disney (upper-division lecture course, Department of Visual Studies, Mississauga campus, Summer 2014)
Film and Media in the Cultural Landscape (upper-division lecture course, Cinema Studies Institute, Fall 2013)
Brock University, Saint Catharines, Ontario, Spring 2014
The Cultural Politics of Taste (senior honors course, Department of
Communication, Popular Culture, and Film, Winter 2014)
University of Toronto, 2007–2013 (teaching assistantships)
Film Cultures II: Politics and Global Media (Cinema Studies Institute, Fall 2012–Winter 2013)
Latin American Cinema (Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Fall 2012)
Media and Globalization (Program in New Media Studies, Fall 2012)
Film Theory (Cinema Studies Institute, Fall 2009–Winter 2010)
Intro to Film Studies (Cinema Studies Institute, Fall 2007–Winter 2008, Fall 2008–Winter 2009)
Writing Center Experience
Professional Tutor, Communication Center, Georgia Tech, 2014–2017
Consultant for Faculty and Postdoctoral Fellows, Communication Center, Georgia Tech, 2016–2017
Research Coordinator, Communication Center, Georgia Tech, 2015–2016
Professional Tutor, New College Writing Centre, University of Toronto, 2013–2014
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Co-chair, Teaching and Technology Committee, Writing and Rhetoric Program (WRP), UVA, 2019–2020
Co-organizer, Global Lunch Briefs, interdisciplinary discussion group for faculty working on film, 2019
Co-organizer, Writing Group, weekly writing sessions for faculty across campus, 2019–2021
Mentor, University of Virginia Mentoring Institute Program, 2019–2020
Member, Pedagogy Committee, WRP, UVA, 2019–2020
Member, Writing Awards Committee, WRP, UVA, 2017–2019
Member, Outreach Committee, WRP, UVA, 2017–2018
Member, Brittain Fellow Hiring Committee, Writing and Communication Program (WCP), Georgia Tech, 2016–2017
Trainer, Office of Serve-Learn-Sustain, Georgia Tech, 2015–2016
Faculty Sponsor, JacketFilms student film club, Georgia Tech, 2015–2016
Member, World Englishes Committee, WCP, Georgia Tech, 2015–2016
Member, Development Laboratory Committee, WCP, Georgia Tech, 2014–2015
Member, Communication Center Committee, WCP, Georgia Tech, 2014–2017
Organizer, “Why Look at Animals?” film series, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, Fall/Winter, 2010–2011
ADDITIONAL EDUCATION
School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, “Queer Technics” seminar with Amy Villarejo, June–July 2012
French Immersion School, University of Western Ontario, Trois-Pistoles, Québec, Canada, June–July 2008
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, advanced undergraduate courses in Spanish language and history, January–May 2004
ADDITIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE
English and Spanish Teacher, The Abelard School: For Advanced University Preparation, Toronto, 2007–2013
Staff Writer, Photographer, and Copy Editor, Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola, Florida, 2005
Managing Editor, Counterpoise: For Social Responsibility, Liberty, and Dissent, Gainesville, Florida, 2002–2003