Colin Helb

Assistant Professor of Communications

About

Hello. I am an Assistant Professor of Communications at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. My areas of teaching speciality are in new media and humanities approaches to the study and teaching of communications and media studies. I teach several courses including "Introduction to Communications," "Media Production and Design," "Audio Applications and Techniques," and "Writing for New Media."

My areas of research interest include media technology, popular culture, popular music, film, amateur and independent media production, experimental and conceptual media, media archives, documentary, and media history.

I earned my PhD from the American Culture Studies program at Bowling Green State University with emphases in Popular Culture, Media Studies, and (New) Media Technology. While at BGSU, I had the pleasure to work with Drs. Jeremy Wallach, Vivian Patraka, Awad Imbrahim, and Donald McQuarie amongst others. My dissertation, titled "Use and Influence of the Amateur Musician Narrative in Film, 1981-2001," is a survey of four films released between 1981 and 2001 in which narratives focus on the struggles of fictional amateur bands. It is an analysis of the presentation of "The Amateur" in relationship to "The Professional," the metaphoric use of these characters as story-telling devises (often created by hegemonically-marginalized filmmakers), the difficulties in marketing and distributing films (or other cultural products) critical of commercial media via orthodox commercial means, and the "real world" influence of the films and characters on musicians, arts, filmmakers, etc. The films are *Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains* (1981), *Ishtar* (1987), *Half-Cocked* (1995), and *Hedwig and the Angry Inch* (2001).

I live in Philadelphia with my two cats and my lovely wife.

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