Robert A. Emmons, Jr

Associate Teaching Professor of Theater
Head of Filmmaking Concentration
D.Litt. Drew University

raemmons@camden.rutgers.edu
www.robertemmons.com
(856) 225-6815
Fine Arts Building, Rm. 264

Biography

Robert A. Emmons Jr. is a documentary filmmaker, video essayist, and Associate Teaching Professor of Filmmaking in the Department of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts at Rutgers University-Camden. From 2016-2020 he was the co-founding Associate Director of the Digital Studies Center. His most recent documentary with partner Joe Tropea, Fugazi’s Barber (2021), is an energetic mixed media film capturing a piece of Washington, D.C. history and the confluences of punk music, neighborhoods, and family. His feature documentaries include, Sickies Making Films (2019) also made with Joe Tropea, an investigation of early film censorship and cinema’s battle for First Amendment protection, Diagram for Delinquents (2014), a deep dive into the work of psychiatrist Fredric Wertham and the comic book panic of the 1940’s and ‘50s, which has played at various comic book conventions including Wizard World and the San Diego Comic Con, Goodwill: The Flight of Emilio Carranza (2007), and De Luxe: The Tale of Blue Comet (2010). Goodwill was screened as part of the Smithsonian Institute exhibition: “Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement at the New Jersey Historical Society”, has won “Best Homegrown Documentary Feature” at the 2008 Garden State Film Festival, and in 2009 received Mexico’s Lindbergh-Carranza International Goodwill Award as a “Messenger of Peace.” His non-fiction video essays have been screened at festivals, conferences, and symposia around the globe and include Game of Nim (2023/24), X9: CHØOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (2023), ChiroMANIA (2018), Fake News (2018), 1 13 5 18 18 25 11 1: An Adaptation of Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse (2016), and Social Media Narrative (2016). He is currently in production on two new documentary films: Weird as it is (2024) and Chambers of MUON (2024). 

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