Lisa M. Rabin

Lisa M. Rabin

Lisa M. Rabin

Associate Professor

Spanish: Film history, film reception, "useful" film, Latin American film and other forms of mass media, Latin American literature, service-learning.

Lisa Rabin is Associate Professor of Spanish  at George Mason University, where she teaches Spanish-language film, media and cultural studies in the Department of Modern & Classical Languages and is an affiliate of the Cultural Studies Program.  She received her B.A. in Spanish & French from Pomona College in 1982 and her Ph.D. in Spanish from Yale University in 1993. Dr. Rabin’s current research concerns the social history of educational film in area studies classrooms of the mid-20th century.   

Current Research

I am currently researching and writing on the distribution and exhibition history of Julien Bryan's educational film shorts in US classrooms from the post-World War II period to the 1980s. I am also examining Julien Bryan's long career on the travel-lecture film circuit, from his 1918 lantern slides on the European Front of World War I to his interactive discussions with schoolchildren on the 1960s shorts he produced on post-colonial African nations and cultures.

Selected Publications

Rabin, Lisa. Screening ‘Good Neighbors’: The Educational Uses of Julien Bryan’s Latin American Shorts Along the US Circuits of 16mm, 1940-1947. TMG Journal for Media History 23.1-2 (2020): 1–34. doi: http://doi.org/10.18146/tmg.589

Rabin, Lisa. and Kridel, Craig. “Cinema for Social Change: The Human Relations Film Series of the Harlem Committee of the Teachers Union, 1936-1950.” In Educating Harlem: Schools and the Referendum on the American Dream (digital edition), eds. Ansley Erickson and Ernest Morrell. New York: Columbia UP, 2019. doi: https://doi.org/10.7916/4vf3-zv07. 

Rabin, Lisa. “A Social History of US Educational Documentary: The Travels of Three Shorts, 1945-1958.” Film History: An International Journal (Bloomington: U of Indiana P.) 29:3 (2017).

Rabin, Lisa.  The Social Uses of Classroom Cinema: A Reception History of the ‘Human Relations Film Series’ at Benjamin Franklin High School, East Harlem, 1936-1955.  The Velvet Light Trap 72 (2013): 58-70.

Rabin, Lisa.  The Normals, the Questionables, and the Delinquents: East Harlem Youth and the Movies, 1931-1934. Illuminace: The Journal of Film Theory, History and Aesthetics, 28.1 (January 2015).

Rabin, Lisa.  Service-Learning/Aprendizaje-servicio as a global practice in Spanish.  Invited book chapter in Manel LaCorte (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics (New York: Routledge, 2014).

Rabin, Lisa. & Leeman, Jennifer. "Critical Service-Learning and Literary Study in Spanish."  In Service Learning and Literary Studies, editors Roberta Rosenberg and Laurie Grobman. New York: Modern Language Association,

Rabin, L. “The Film Text as Cultural Matrix in The New Cinema History,” to be given at the History of Movie Exhibition and Reception Annual Conference. Virtual (hosted by University of Maynooth, Dublin, Ireland). May 25-28, 2021.

Rabin, L. “From Developmentalism to Difference: Julien Bryan’s World Films in International and Ethnic Studies Classrooms 1960-1980,” to be given at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Virtual. March 19, 2021.

Leeman, J., Rabin, L., & Román-Mendoza, E.  (2012).  Identity and Social Activism in Heritage Language Education.  Modern Language Journal 95.4: 481-495.

Grants and Fellowships

Balasch-Rodríguez, Sonia, Vikis, Alexia D., Rabin, Lisa and Sweet, Colleen. "Course Redesign: Using Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant" (for Spanish 305-306-309 courses). Mason 4-VA in collaboration with the University Libraries and Mason Online. George Mason University, spring 2017.. 

Courses Taught

CULT 320: Globalization & Culture

SPAN 544: Introduction to Latin American Film & Television Studies

SPAN 512 | SPAN 482: Mass Media & Popular Culture in Latin America

FRLN 331 (World Cinema in Translation): Latin American Film & Television

SPAN 510: Methods in Literary & Cultural Studies in Spanish

SPAN 390: Introduction to Literary & Cultural Studies in Spanish

SPAN 375: Introduction to Spanish-language Film

SPAN 370: Spanish Writing and Stylistics

SPAN 335: Topics in Spanish (conversation): Latin American Film

SPAN 212 | 329: Intermediate Spanish in Local & Global Contexts

 

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, Spanish Literature (1993)

M. Phil., Yale University, Spanish Literature (1990)

M.A., Yale University, Spanish Literature (1988)

B.A. (cum laude), Spanish and French Literature, Pomona College (1986)

Recent Presentations

Rabin, Lisa. “The Film Text as Cultural Matrix in The New Cinema History,” to be given at the History of Movie Exhibition and Reception Annual Conference. Virtual (hosted by University of Maynooth, Dublin, Ireland). May 25-28, 2021.

Rabin, Lisa. “From Developmentalism to Difference: Julien Bryan’s World Films in International and Ethnic Studies Classrooms 1960-1980." Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Virtual. March 19, 2021.

Rabin, Lisa. "Becoming International: American Audiences
and the Educational Films of Julien Bryan (1899-1974)." History of Movie Exhibition and Reception Annual Conference. Nassau, Bahamas. June 27, 2019.

Rabin, Lisa. “The Social Dimensions of Educational Film: Hadassah's Local US Screenings of Tomorrow's A Wonderful Day (Helmar Lerski, 1947, English adaptation Hazel Greenwald, Hadassah, 1948), 1948-1957." Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. Chicago, Illinois. March 2017. SCMS 2017 Chicago - conference program