LIPKIN, Steven N. 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born February 15, 1951, in Akron, OH; married Linda Sawyer, August, 1979; children: Benjamin, Evan. Education: Northwestern University, B.S., 1973; University of Iowa, M.A., 1974, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Home—1753 Grand Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49006. Office—Department of Communication, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Iowa, instructor in rhetoric, broadcasting, and film, 1973-77; East Stroudsburg State College, East Stroudsburg, PA, assistant professor of speech communication and theater arts, 1977-81; Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, assistant professor, 1981-86, associate professor, 1986-2002, professor of communication, 2002—.

MEMBER:

University Film and Video Association, Society for Cinema Studies.

WRITINGS:

Real Emotional Logic: Film and Television Docudrama as Persuasive Practice, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Current Research in Film, Volume 2, edited by Bruce A. Austin, Ablex Publishing (Norwood, NJ), 1986; Handbook of American Film Genres, edited by Wes D. Gehring, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1988; Beyond the Stars III: The Material World in American Popular Film, edited by Paul Loukides and Linda Fuller, Bowling Green State University Popular Press (Bowling Green, OH), 1993; and Why Docudrama?, edited by A. Rosenthal, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1999. Contributor to periodicals, including Journal of Film and Video, Cinema Journal, Creative Screenwriting, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Michigan Academician, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, and Images: Journal of Film and Popular Culture.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

A screenplay for a feature film; a script for a television movie based on real events.

SIDELIGHTS:

Steven N. Lipkin told CA: "I write about 'docudrama' in film and television. I believe feature films and made-for-television movies based on true stories offer us one of the most appealing, and at the same time, one of the most unexplored modes of film and television discourse. I have found it fruitful to approach docudrama as a mode of argument, examining its ethical, historical, and ideological influences on the substantial audience it reaches. Docudramas ride the fence between narrative and documentary modes, blending the strategies of both, belonging wholly to neither.

"My work addresses a central question: why does docudrama offer such an appealing form of storytelling? I believe that the appeal of docudrama inheres within its very form of presentation. In connecting incredibly diverse kinds of dramatic and documentary material these works, I find, consistently argue for a moral view of reality-based subject matter."