Biography

Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli studied journalism and film at San Francisco State University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1990. In 1994,  received a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from San Francisco State University. He then went into the Spanish and Portuguese doctoral program at the University of California, Irvine and received his PhD in 2001. Before coming to SUA, Dr. Crowder-Taraborrelli taught at the University of San Francisco, where he founded the film collective Cine Campesino and made two documentaries in Honduras (2002-2004). He then received a Fellowship in the Humanities at Stanford University, California, where he taught and did research on the role of cinema in the investigation of crimes against humanity. He also co-founded the Stanford Film Lab and ran it from 2004-2008. Dr. Crowder-Taraborrelli also studied scriptwriting, lighting and direction at the Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco, California. He has given lectures and workshops on film and is one of the editors of the anthology Film and Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012).

Professor Crowder-Taraborrelli  currently teaches Latin American Studies at Soka University, California, where he is working on a manuscript entitled Documentary Film and the Condor Years. He is an associate producer of Community Cinema at Soka University, a documentary series produced by The Independent Television Services (ITVS). His articles on film have appeared in several journals and magazines. He is a member of the collective of coordinating editors at the journal Latin American Perspectives: A Journal of Capitalism and Socialism. He also serves as book and film review editor for Latin American Perspectives. He is also the director of Shooting Scripts, a consulting organization dedicated to the development of screenplays for feature films and documentaries. In March 2012, he was elected co-chair of the Film Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association.