Ready to take on the world
Professor, on Sabbatical
Communication
Professor
Cinema Studies Minor
Office
Emma Hart Willard Hall
401-39
Biography
Dr. Karen A. Ritzenhoff is a Professor of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. She is also affiliated with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program (WGSS) as well as Cinema Studies and the Honors Program. Ritzenhoff recently co-edited Barbenheimer Syndrome: The Creation of Cultural Spectacle at the Box Office with Drs. Carolyn Condon Jacobs and Anna Young (eds.) New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/barbenheimer-syndrome-9781978766709/
Ritzenhoff also co-edited two volumes on Contemporary Asian Popular Culture with Dr. Yeojin "Julie" Kim (Communication), Dr. Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe (English) and Dr. Hiba Aleem (English, Boston University). The anthologies have been published by Palgrave MacMillan (Springer Group) in January 2025.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-72065-9
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-72178-6
In May 2025, Ritzenhoff's monograph on "Von Harriet zu Queen & Slim: Afroamerikanische Regisseurinnen und ihre neuen Bilderwelten" was published by the Schueren Verlag in German. The volume discusses the work of seven African American women directors: Melina Matsoukas, Kasi Lemmons, Ava DuVernay, Nia DaCosta, Halle Berry, Regina King, and Chinonye Chukwu.
https://www.schueren-verlag.de/programm/titel/von-harriet-zu-queen-and-slim.html
Her co-edited anthology on "Gender, Power, and Identity in the Films of Stanley Kubrick" with Dijana Metlić and Jeremi Szaniawski (Routledge, 2023) was released in paperback in 2024.
Further publications: "Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness" with Renee T. White (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021).
"Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century" with Elena Caoduro and Karen Randell (Palgrave, 2021).
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-73511-1
Dr. Ritzenhoff is on sabbatical for the 2025-2026 Academic Year
Education
Film Studies, Communication, Comparative Literature
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
1996
Romance Languages, Political Science, American Studies
University of Tuebingen, Germany
1988
Romance Languages, Political Science, American Studies
Siegen University, Germany
1987
Areas of Expertise
Study Abroad courses to France, Italy, the UK, and Spain/Portugal
Film Studies
Gender Studies
Television and mass media
TV Documentary
Global Visual Communication
Women and Film
American Cinema
Stanley Kubrick
Publications, Research & Presentations
*Metlić, Dijana and Karen A. Ritzenhoff, “Stories Untold: Chris Baker’s Sketches for Eyes Wide Shut.” Ruggero Eugeni and Elisa Pezzotta (eds.) The Transition of Kubrick Studies to Archival Research: Case Studies, Methods and Epistemological Issues. Vernon Press, forthcoming in 2027.
*“Paul Verhoeven, Rape, and Sexuality in Benedetta and Elle.” In Elizabeth Miller and Nathan Abrams (eds.) Paul Verhoeven: Critical Approaches. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, forthcoming in 2027.
*“Patriarchy in the Boardroom and War Room.” In Carolyn Condon Jacobs, Anna Young and Karen A. Ritzenhoff (eds.) Barbenheimer Syndrome: The Creation of Cultural Spectacle at the Box Office. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026: 169 – 180. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/barbenheimer-syndrome-9781978766709/
*Amanda Potter and Karen A. Ritzenhoff, “Seeing Through Varinia’s Eyes: Alliance of Enslaved People in Spartacus.” In Kerstin Stutterheim and Elisa Pezzotta (eds.) Spartacus and Kubrick in Hollywood: New Perspectives on the Film and its Production. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2026. https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781805960096
*“The Judgmental Gaze: How Women Assess African American Men in Kubrick’s Film.” In Joy McEntee and Elisa Pezzotta (eds.) Kubrick and Race. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2025: 155 – 169.
*Exploitation and Violence: Precarious Labor in Squid Game." In Yeojin Kim, Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe, Hiba Aleem and Karen A. Ritzenhoff (eds.), Contemporary Asian Popular Culture Volume 1. New York: Palgrave, 2025: 175-196.
*McAvoy, Catriona and Karen A. Ritzenhoff, “‘If You Men Only Knew’: Stanley Kubrick’s Failed Attempt to Explore Female Sexuality in Eyes Wide Shut.” In Nathan Abrams and Georgina Orgill (eds.) Eyes Wide Shut: Behind Stanley Kubrick’s Masterpiece. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2024.
*"Sue Lyon and the Consequences of the 'Lolita Look'". Co-authored with Dijana Metlić. In Karen A. Ritzenhoff, Dijana Metlic and Jeremi Szaniawski (eds.). Gender, Power, and Identity in the Films of Stanley Kubrick. London: Routledge, 2023: 32-50.
* “A Clockwork Orange and its Representations of Sexual Violence as Torture: Stanley Kubrick and Francis Bacon.” In Matt Melia and Georgina Orgill (eds.). Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange. New York: Palgrave, 2023: 265-284.
• “A Maverick on the Streets: Bill Cunningham and the Documentary Process.” In Elena Caoduro and Boel Ulfsdotter (eds.). Documenting Fashion. Edinburgh University Press, 2023: 102-121.
• “Terrorism and Gender in Eye in the Sky and Zero Dark Thirty: Women and Girls on the War Front in Contemporary Cinema.” In Elena Caoduro, Karen Randell and Karen A. Ritzenhoff (eds.). Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century, Chapter 11. New York: Palgrave, 2021: 243-269.
• “Feminism and Kubrick.” In: Nathan Abrams and Ian Hunter (eds). The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021: 169-178.
*Ritzenhoff, Karen A. and Hannah D’Orso. “The New Wave in the New Millenium: Joker, Taxi Driver, Nostalgia, and Trumpian Politics.” In Gregory Frame and Nathan Abrams (eds.) New Wave, New Hollywood. Bloomsbury Press, 2021: 179-200.
Awards & Grants
Finalist for the Excellent In Teaching Award at Central in 2020 and 2013
Memberships & Affiliations
Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)
Courses Taught
Comm 220 History of Film
Comm 255 Visual Communication
Comm 380 Women and Film
Comm 382 American Cinema
Comm 455 Global Visual Communication
Comm 487 TV Documentary
Comm 485 Topics in Media and Culture: Life in Prison in Film and TV (fall 2020)
Comm 496 Field Studies in Communication
Comm 490 Internship Program
Hon 210 Western Culture: Trauma and Identity in Literature and Film
Hon 230 Post 9/11 Literature and Film