Rate My Professor Robert Davis

Professor Robert Davis serves as a faculty member in the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Fullerton. He earned his PhD from Harvard University and subsequently completed an MFA in Film Production at the University of Southern California. Before entering academia, Davis worked as chief film critic at SPIN magazine and contributed regularly to American Cinematographer. At CSUF, he teaches core production courses such as CTVA 300 (Language of Film) and CTVA 425 (Production 2), where he has utilized university grants to support student projects. Davis developed the department's undergraduate Feature Film Production course series, CTVA 347-348-349, recognized as the only such program offered at the undergraduate level in the United States. This initiative operates on a micro-budget of $250,000 raised through grants from Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities and the Golden Globe Foundation, enabling students to collaborate with industry professionals across pre-production, production, and post-production phases.

Davis specializes in trends in contemporary Asian cinema, conducting research at major international film festivals and markets, including the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Filmart, Tokyo International Film Festival and Film Market, Vancouver International Film Festival, and Cannes. His publications include 'The Body and Visual Poetics in Tran Anh Hung's Films' with Tim Maloney in Mysterious Skin: The Body and Contemporary World Cinema (Macmillan, 2009); 'The Beautiful and the Bad' in Asian Cinema (2013); 'Hong Sang soo’s Geuk jang jeon [A Tale of Cinema]: redaction criticism and production analysis' with Tim Maloney in New Review of Film and Television Studies (2014); four articles in Directory of World Cinema: Korea (University of Chicago, 2013); and sixteen articles in the Directory of World Cinema: Japan volumes I, II, and III (University of Chicago Press, 2010, 2012, 2015). He has secured multiple grants, including University Missions & Goals grants ($5,000 in 2009; $3,000 in 2010), University Junior/Senior grants ($5,000 in 2012 and 2015), Faculty Development Center international travel grants across several years, and a 2015 CSU Entertainment Industry Initiative grant ($6,000) for a micro-budget feature film collaboration. Davis also received grants to subtitle over a dozen Japanese films, distributed to institutions such as Yale University, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. He serves on the department's Assessment Committee, received a sabbatical in 2017, and was awarded a Junior/Senior Faculty Research Grant for Feature Film Pre-Production.