Oberlin College

Oberlin, Ohio

Dr. Caroline Jackson-smith

Caroline Jackson-Smith is professor of theater and Africana studies. A recipient of the prestigious 1993 fellowship for early career directors from the Theater Communications Group/National Endowment for the Arts, Prof. Jackson-Smith made her New York debut at the New York Public Theater in 1995, when she directed Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro for the Signature Theater Company. She has directed and or worked as a dramaturg for the Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Karamu House, and the Cleveland Public Theatre on such productions as The Women of Plums, The Talented Tenth, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Our Town, Your Town. A graduate of Yale University, Prof. Jackson-Smith served as the executive director of the Yale Afro-American Cultural Center for eight years. Since coming to Oberlin in 1989, she has directed The Gospel at Colonus, The Tapestry, The Resurrection of Lady Lester, Darker Face of the Earth, and The Colored Museum,among other productions.

Dr. Geoff Pingree

Geoff Pingree is a writer, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and Professor of Cinema Studies and English at Oberlin College. After earning master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago, he worked in public television in Washington, DC, where he directed Catholic University’s Program in Media Studies and George Washington University’s Institute for Documentary Filmmaking. He directs StoryLens Pictures, a nonprofit organization that makes independent documentary films about pressing social issues in order to promote education, encourage public dialogue, and enable change. Visit https://storylens.org/team to learn more about his current documentaries and past work.

Dr. Grace An

Grace An arrived at Oberlin upon completion of her PhD in romance studies at Cornell University, where she specialized in 20th-century French visual studies. Her dissertation, ‘‘Par-asian Technologies: French Cinematic, Artistic, and Literary Encounters with East Asia since 1945,’’ became a series of published articles on the films of French directors and also paved the way for new course development. Currently, Dr. An is completing a book titled Disobedient Muse: Delphine Seyrig, Feminism, and The Cinema, which tells the story of French actress-agitator Delphine Seyrig, a passionate and committed artist who committed her cultural capital, tremendous talent, and grit to the movements of change in France of the late 1960s and 1970s.  Disobedient Muse presents a cultural history of women’s filmmaking of the 1960s and 1970s from the point of view of a versatile actress and its intersections with the women’s movements of the period. This project has opened other research avenues, such as Jane Fonda’s activism in Vietnam, the reproductive rights movement in France during the 1970s, and the ethics of care.  With Catherine Witt (Reed College), Dr. An is coediting a special issue of French Screen Studies on documentary film practices and the ethics of care in France since 1968, to appear in 2021.

Dr. Jody Kerchner

Jody L. Kerchner specializes in secondary school music and choral music education. She was awarded the Oberlin College Excellence in Teaching Award in 2011. She is founder and conductor of Oberlin Music at Grafton, a prison choir at the Grafton Correctional Institution. Prior to teaching at the collegiate level, Dr. Kerchner taught K-8 general and choral music in Swarthmore, Pa., and Winnetka, Il., and was conductor of the Oberlin Youth Chorale. An active clinician, she has presented keynote addresses, research papers, and pedagogy workshops nationally and internationally at conferences in North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Kerchner also frequently serves as guest choral conductor for elementary, middle, and high school honors choral festivals.