Wheeler Winston Dixon: Distinguished Film Scholar, Author, and Experimental Filmmaker

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Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Professor Emeritusof Film Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and, with Gwendolyn
Audrey Foster, editor of the book series Quick Takes: Movies and Popular
Culture for Rutgers University Press, which published more than
twenty volumes on various cultural topics. He is the author of more than thirty
books on film history, theory and criticism, as well as more than 100 articles
in various academic journals. He is also an active experimental filmmaker,
whose works are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. His
recent video work is collected in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. He has
also taught at The New School, Rutgers University, and the University of
Amsterdam.
Dixon's book A Short History of Film (2008, co-authoredwith Gwendolyn
Audrey Foster) was reprinted six times through 2012. A second,
revised edition was published in 2013; a third, revised edition was published
in 2018. The fourth updated edition, with new information on AI, comic
book films, filmmaking during the pandemic, and the explosion of
franchise films, as well as more up to date information on women
directors in the cinema, was published in 2025. The book is a required
text in universities throughout the world.
His recent books include Synthetic Cinema: The 21st CenturyMovie Machine
(2019), Black & White Cinema: A Short History (2015); Streaming:
Movies,
Media and Instant Access (2013); Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical
Hollywood (2012); 21st Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation
(2011, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster); and Film Noir and the Cinema
of Paranoia (2009). The second, expanded edition of his book A
History of Horror (2010), was published in 2023. As an experimental
filmmaker, his works have been screenedat Film Criticism The Museum of Modern Art, The
Whitney Museum of American Art, Anthology Film
Archives, Filmhuis Cavia (Amsterdam), Studio 44 (Stockholm), La lumière
collective (Montréal), The BWA Katowice Museum (Poland), The Microscope
Gallery, The National Film Theatre (UK), The Jewish Museum, The Millennium Film
Workshop, The San Francisco Cinématheque, LA Filmforum (Los Angeles), The New
Arts Lab, The Exploding Cinema (London), The Collective for Living Cinema, The
Kitchen, The Filmmakers Cinématheque, Film Forum, The Amos Eno Gallery, Sla 307
Art Space, The Gallery of Modern Art, The Rice Museum, The Oberhausen Film
Festival, Undercurrent, Experimental Response Cinema and other venues.
In addition, Dixon’s films have been screened at numerousfilm festivals
throughout the world, including presentations in London, New
York, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Monterrey (Mexico), Urbino (Italy), Tehran
(Iran), Naples (Italy), Athens (Greece), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rybinski
(Russia), Palermo (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Australia,
Qatar, Amsterdam, Vienna, Moscow, Milan, Switzerland, Croatia, Stockholm
(Sweden), Havana (Cuba) and elsewhere.