Associate Professor

Office Location

Media and Performing Arts
Martire Center BUCM*W214
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Sara Ross, Ph.D. (“Sally”) is a film scholar with a focus on women in film. She has centered her research and teaching practice on film aesthetics and film storytelling, both as they apply to film scholarship and also as vital tools for aspiring filmmakers. Ross is the author of scholarly articles on subjects ranging from the Hollywood flapper in the 1920s to contemporary 3-D cinema. She has published in the journals Film History, Camera Obscura, Modernism and Modernity, Aura, and in a number of anthologies. Her interests include silent film and female characters in Hollywood, with publications on these topics including “Screening the Modern Girl: Intermediality in the Adaptation of Flaming Youth”, Modernism and Modernity, “1922 – Movies and the Perilous Future”, American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations, “The Americanization of Tsuru Aoki: Orientalism, Melodrama, Star Image and the New Woman”, and “‘Good Little Bad Girls’: Silent Comediennes and the Performance of Girlish Sexuality.”  Her most recent work focuses on the history of the romantic comedy.

Dr. Ross is also an avid proponent of international study and collaboration, whether through study abroad, faculty and student exchanges, or online learning.  She has served as SHU’s Faculty Fellow for Internationalization of the Curriculum, and has studied and presented papers on best practices in intercultural pedagogy.  She has taught abroad in India, Ireland, Luxembourg and England, and has also taught internationally via COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning.)

 Expertise

  • Film History
  • Film Aesthetcis
  • Film Production
  • Women in Film and Television
  • Media Studies in an International Context

Degrees & Certifications

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

Teaching Responsibilities

Dr. Ross’s course offerings include Women in Film, Film History, Narrative Video Production and Screenwriting. She has been teaching film studies and production at Sacred Heart since 2006. Recent courses taught include: Women in Film, Film History, Script Analysis, Romantic Comedy in Film and Television, Narrative Video Production, Vampires in Popular Culture and Screenwriting.