Assistant Professor, Practice

Graduate Studies in Media Arts
Film & Television Studies

Graduated from University of KwaZulu Natal, UND South Africa with Ph.D. in Cultural and Media Studies, with special reference to television,1998. Previously graduated with MA in Media Arts from University of Arizona. Undergrad degree, majoring in English, Latin and Classics from University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Taught history, criticism and aesthetics of media at Johns Hopkins University, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Towson University, University of Maryland Baltimore County and Villa Julie College.

External Examiner of MA theses at University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban on many topics including “Television, Media Memory & Identity Formation” and “The paradox of nation-building and commercially driven broadcasting: The case of Lesotho television.”

Internal Examiner for “Pulp Fiction versus Reservoir Dogs: An Analysis of the Construction of Cinematic Violence by Quentin Tarantino”, and “Shifting Paradigms: An Investigation into the Transformation of the SABC in a Post-Apartheid South Africa with Special Reference to Television News” and many others.

Visiting Scholar at Voice of America - English-to-Africa Branch, Washington DC. In summer of 1997. Report to the VOA “Negotiating Audiences in SubSaharan Africa for the year 2000”. (www.und.ac.za/und/ccms/articles/voa.htm)

Member of the Editorial Board for Critical Arts: A Journal of Cultural Studies.

Personal research and publication have been in reception studies tracing the negotiation of cultural change and difference through humor on television programs.
Current research interests are geared to investigating the representation of gender and race in the media, examining how popular culture portrays identity of males and females across cultures.

Philosophy of teaching aims to provide a genuinely participatory environment in the class room encouraging students to examine how images are conditioned by cultural attitudes toward race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and class. In addition, the goal is always to develop a critical awareness of alternative models of constructing images and the politics of interpretation of symbolic forms.

Work in progress: An ethnographic project to identify post 9/11 the cultural impact through media on South African immigrants to America.

e-mail: droome@email.arizona.edu
office: 520.621.9966

Marshall Bldg, Room 244