Robert Stam is without doubt one of the most visible and respected individuals in Cinema Studies. An associate Professor in New York University's Department of Cinema Studies, e received his Ph.D. from Berkeley in Comparative Literature in 1976,. In addition to the book under construction, he has published Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film which won an award as the "Outstanding academic Book" for 1990, Brazilian Cinema, O Espetacullo Interrompido: Literature e Cinema de Desmistificacao, Key Terms in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, Post-structuralism, and Beyond, Bakhtin and Unthinking Eurocentrism: Towards a Multi-Cultural Film Critique.