Travis Merchant-Knudsen

Bio

T. R. Merchant-Knudsen is a P.hD. candidate in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program, an adjunct instructor at Wake Technical Community College, and Editorial Board Member for Film International. 

MK has been teaching in the English department since 2019, in the Communication department since 2021, and for the Global Training Initiative since 2024. Classes that they’ve taught include: COM 110 – Public Speaking, ENG/COM 321 – Survey of Rhetorical Theory, ENG 282 – Introduction to Film, ENG/COM 395 – Rhetoric and Digital Media: Animating Queer Rhetoric, COM 267 – Electronic Media Writing: Theory and Practice, ENG 374 – Film History Since 1940

MK’s writings have been published in Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, Cultural Intertexts, Film Matters, Film International, and more. Additionally, Travis have presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, the Society for Animation Studies Conference, The Carolina Rhetoric Conference, Visions Film Festival and Conference, and elsewhere. In addition to scholarly pursuits, MK is an independent filmmaker and musician. For a full list of works, check out the website or CV attached above.

Selected Publications

“Mecha Bodies” from The Encyclopedia of Animation Studies Vol. 4: Characters and Aesthetics, ed. Christopher Holliday and David McGowan, Bloomsbury, Anticipated 2025

“Objects Under an Omniscient Lens: Investigations of Power and Surveillance in Late Fincher” from ReFocus: The Films of David Fincher, ed. Keith Clavin, Edinburgh University Press, Anticipated 2025

“Parting Words: Viewing films one image at a time; or, remembering Hannah Frank (1984–2017)” Film International 20.4, September 2023

“Filmed Love Letters: The Dialogism and Intertextuality of Lost in Translation and Her” Cultural Intertexts vol. 11, Winter 2021

“Painting a Collaborative Gaze: Tactility and the Myth in Portrait of a Lady on Fire” co-authored with Susie Hedley Film International 19.2, June 2021

“‘Lost Inside Empire’: Self-Orientalization in the Animation and Sounds of
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises” Southeast Asian Review of English 57.1, July 2020

Selected Presentations

“Recycling Dead Animals and Bug Carcasses in Stop-Motion and Abstract
Animations” Society for Animation Studies Conference 35: Animating Change, July 2024

“Indexable Trans Films, and Losing/Finding the Self in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, March 2024

“Coffee & Viz: AI Image Generation and its View of Gender” North Carolina State University Libraries, Teaching and Visualization Lab at Hunt Library, September 2023

“A Rhetoric of Idle Animation: Idleness and Ambience in Open-World Video Game Environments” Society for Animation Studies Conference 34: The Animated Environment, July 2024

“Bodies Unbound to Time: Embracing Sensations of Spectacle and Narrative in Climax” Triangle Film Salon: Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, March 2023

“Animated Abstractions Unbound to Time: Sensations of Spectacle and Narrative in Mandy” Society for Animation Studies Conference 33: Animation Unlocked, June 2022

“Surviving Through Disconnected Patience: Procedural and Ambient Rhetoric in Death Stranding” Carolina Rhetoric Conference: Rhetoric(s) for Survival, February 2022

“‘Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out into the New Environment’: The Speculative Reality of Persona 5” Society for Animation Studies Conference 32: Animate Energies, June 2021

Fellowships and Awards

Stanford-Leuphana Summer Academy, June 2024 
Paper Title: “Visual Ambience, Digital Images, and Against Acceleration with Respite and Reprieve”

Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto || Pordenone Silent Film Festival, 2020 – 2021
Collegium Paper Award for the essay “The Intrusive, Necessary Labor of Archivists in the Face of Change”                                                                                                  

Area(s) of Expertise

Their interests in film and media studies are on intermedia sensory experiences, phenomenology and affect, formalist analysis, animation, film histories, and ambience within spectacular media environments.

Publications

• Parting Words: Viewing films one image at a time; or, remembering Hannah Frank (1984–2017) , Film International (2022)
• Painting a Collaborative Gaze , Film International (2021)
• “Filmed Love Letters: The Dialogism and Intertextuality of Lost in Translation and her” , Cultural Intertexts (2021)
• Uncomfortable Laughter: Revisiting Funny Games (1997) on Criterion , Film International (2020)
• “Lost Inside Empire”: Self-Orientalization in the Animation and Sounds of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises , Southeast Asian Review of English (2020)
• Through the Haze: Fidelity of Adaptation in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice , Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies (2019)
• Magnificent Obsession in 13 Frames + The Darjeeling Limited in 16 Frames , Film Matters (2016)
• “Force Majeure: A Dramatic, Humorous Dissection of Family” , Film Matters (2016)
• The Censorship of Art After Death: Looking at Stanley Kubrick’s History with Censorship , Film Matters (2015)