William Rothman is a Professor of Cinema Arts. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard, where he was an Associate Professor in Visual and Environmental Studies (1976-84), and was Director of the International Honors Program on Film, Television and Social Change in Asia (1986-90).
Dr. Rothman was the founding editor and Series Editor of Harvard University Press’s “Harvard Film Studies” series, and for many years was Series Editor of Cambridge University Press’s “Studies in Film.” His books include the landmark study Hitchcock—The Murderous Gaze (1982; expanded edition 2012), The “I” of the Camera (1988; expanded edition 2004); Documentary Film Classics (1997); A Philosophical Perspective on Film (2000); Cavell on Film (2005); Jean Rouch: A Celebration of Life and Film (2007); Three Documentary Filmmakers (2009); Must We Kill the Thing We Love? Emersonian Perfectionism and the Films of Alfred Hitchcock (2014); Looking with Robert Gardner (2016); Tuitions and Intuitions: Essays at the Intersection of Film and Philosophy (2019); and The Holiday in His Eye: Stanley Cavell’s Vision of Film and Philosophy (2021). He has also contributed chapters to more than sixty books and dozens of essays in the major film studies journals, and liner notes and visual essays to Criterion DVDs of classic films. He has given keynote addresses and special invited lectures in over thirty countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia as well as Australia and New Zealand.
With his wife, Kitty Morgan, Dr. Rothman wrote and co-produced (with the National Film Development Corporation of India) the 35mm feature film Unni (1990), directed by the distinguished Indian director G. Aravindan.