Michael DeAngelis has a wide variety of interests in film and cultural studies. Much of his work has focused on stardom and popular cultural manifestations of queerness in cinema, including his first book, "Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom: James Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves" (Duke University Press, 2001), and pieces on Todd Haynes, Robert Stigwood, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise. In 2014, his edited collection "Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film and Television" was published by Wayne State University Press. His most recent book is "Rx Hollywood: Cinema and Therapy in the 1960s" (State University of New York Press, 2017). Michael also does research in the areas of film exhibition history, melodrama, film authorship, heritage cinema, theme parks and roller coasters.
Michael’s work has been published in such journals as Camera Obscura, Celebrity Studies, Cultural Critique, Film Criticism, Literature/Film Quarterly, The Velvet Light Trap, and Spectator. Michael has also contributed pieces to anthologies including Star Decades: American Culture/American Cinema; Hetero: Queering Representations of Straightness; Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader; American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations; American Cinema in the 1950s: Themes and Variations; New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader; Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Gender at the End of the Century; The Apartment Complex; and The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness.
At DePaul, Michael has taught courses in film history, film analysis, melodrama, the horror film, male sexualities in American cinema, queerness in media culture, melodrama, film exhibition history, Asian cinema and European art cinema.
DePaul has given him many opportunities to teach abroad, first in Hong Kong (where he developed a course comparing Hollywood and Hong Kong action cinemas), and later in Bangkok. Since 2011, Michael has served as the director of the summer
Rome: Film Studies program, which provides DePaul students with the opportunity to visit the sites where a number of noteworthy Italian films have been set, and to meet and interact with noted directors, actors, cinematographers, editors and sound designers of the Italian film industry.
Michael received BA and MA degrees in English and comparative literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in 1997 he earned his PhD in radio-television-film from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been a member of the College of Communication faculty since 2010.
Michael has a passion for theme parks, and he visits Great America, Cedar Point and Disneyland whenever he gets the chance.
Courses Taught
- MCS 207 History of Cinema, I: 1890-1945
- MCS 208 History of Cinema, II: 1945-1975
- MCS 209 History of Cinema, III: 1975-Present
- MCS 251 Spaces of Cinema in Rome
- MCS 273 Storytelling and Style in Cinema
- MCS 348 Topics in Film Genre: Bromance
- MCS 349 Topics in Film Studies: The Sexual Revolution: Hollywood in the 1960s
- MCS 504 Historiography and Research
- MCS 520 Topics in Media Studies: Queerness in Media Culture
- MCS 521: Topics in Cinema Studies: Melodrama in Film and Television
- MCS 522 Stardom and Celebrity Culture
- MCS 523 Topics in Global Media: Cinema of Peace
- CMN 396 Capstone Seminar in Communication