Alice Maurice

Associate Professor and Chair (UTSC); Undergraduate Instructor
Humanities Wing, Room 326, 1265 Military Trail Scarborough, ON M1C 1A4. Jackman Humanities Building, Room 717, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2M8
416-287-7180

Campus

Fields of Study

Areas of Interest

  • 19th Century American Literature, 20th Century American Literature, Aspects of Theory
  • Cinema Studies

Biography

Alice Maurice's book, The Cinema and Its Shadow (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), focuses on race and technology in early U.S. cinema, exploring how questions of race difference informed the development of cinematic language in early U.S. cinema. In addition to her work on early cinema, her research includes late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century American literature and visual culture, and documentary studies. Her current project focuses on the history of the face in American cinema. She has also worked in documentary film production and was Associate Producer of two award-winning films, A Healthy Baby Girl (Judith Helfand Productions, 1997) and the Academy Award-winning short Defending Our Lives (Cambridge Documentary Films, 1994).

Publications

Books

Faces on Screen: New Approaches. (ed.) (Edinburgh University Press, 2022.) 

The Cinema and Its Shadow: Race and Technology in Early Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, Spring 2013).

Selected Publications

“The Death of Lon Chaney: Race, Masculinity, and the Authenticity of Disguise,” in Hollywood at the Intersection of Identity, ed. Delia Konzett (forthcoming, Rutgers University Press)

“Making Faces: Character and Makeup in Early Cinema,” in Corporeality and Early Cinema: Skin, Viscera, and Physical Form, ed. Doron Galilli (forthcoming, Indiana University Press) 

“Uncanny Documentary,” CineAction No. 97 (2016)

“Fiction, Drama, and the Space Between: Race and Performance in James’s The Other House,” forthcoming, Henry James Review.

“From New Deal to No Deal: Blackface Minstrelsy, Bamboozled, and Reality Television” in Burnt Cork: Traditions and Legacies of Blackface Minstrelsy, ed. Stephen Johnson (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012).

“What the Shadow Knows: Race, Image, and Meaning in Shadows (1922),” Cinema Journal 47.3 (Spring 2008).

“‘Cinema At Its Source’: Synchronizing Race and Sound in the Early Talkies,” Camera Obscura 49 (Spring, 2002).

“The Essence of Motion: Figure, Frame and the Racial Body in Early Silent Cinema,” Moving Image 1.2 (Fall, 2001).

Film & Video Productions

Associate Producer, A Healthy Baby Girl (56 min., 1997).

  • Premiered on the PBS series POV
  • Winner of the Peabody Award.

Associate Producer, Defending Our Lives (30 min., 1993)

  • Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, 1994.

Current Research

Professor Maurice’s current SSHRC-funded project, “Making Faces: Makeup, Identity, and the Changing Face of American Cinema,” explores the history of the face on screen. She is also collaborating on a project about the representation of autism in popular media.

Education

BA, Williams College
MA, Cornell University
PhD, Cornell University

Administrative Service

Chair, Department of English, U of T Scarborough.