Elizabeth Ann Kaplan with Dean Holly Smith

Elizabeth Ann Kaplan was only the fifth person to earn a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Rutgers, which she did in 1970 under the direction of the grand old man of the field here, John O. McCormick. Dr. Kaplan taught at Rutgers before moving on to SUNY Stony Brook, where she is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Founding Director of the Humanities Institute. She is an international figure in cultural and cinema studies, a pioneer in the former, and is prodigiously and widely published and translated. She recently served a term as president of The Society for Cinema and Media Studies. She is known to be indefatigable and highly collegial, full of energy and enthusiasm, a talented administrator, and an original thinker in bringing feminist approaches and psychoanalysis to the study of film and popular culture.