Sarah E. S. Sinwell (Ph.D., Communication and Culture, Indiana University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Arts at the University of Utah. She has published essays on Kickstarter, Green Porno, Riverdale, and Dexter in A Companion to American Indie Film, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Feminist and Queer Theory: An Intersectional and Transnational Reader, and Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives. Through analyses of such topics as YouTube, web series, art house cinemas, and queer and female independent filmmaking, her research investigates the intersections between contemporary American independent cinema and new media platforms. Examining shifting modes of independent film distribution and exhibition on YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and SundanceTV, her first book Indie Cinema Online (Rutgers University Press, 2020), redefines independent cinema in an era of media convergence. Sarah is currently working on her second book project about the representation of gender and sexuality in Twitter campaigns such as #GiveElsaAGirlfriend and #MakeReyAsexual. Sarah has won numerous awards for both her research and teaching, including a grant to participate in the NEH Institute on Understanding Digital Culture: Humanist Lenses for Internet Research. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in Media
Arts, Film History, Film Theory, Diversity in Film and Media, Women Directors, Queer Media, Independent Cinema, and Convergence Cultures.