About

José B. Capino is an award-winning scholar specializing in minoritized cinemas, including documentary, melodrama, independent, adult, and avant-garde films in the US, the Philippines, and the Filipinx diaspora. His research also encompasses the cultural, literary, and historical aspects of US imperialism, with a particular focus on the Philippines as the only former US colony. Employing rigorous multi-archival research and critical perspectives from cinema studies and cultural theory, Capino offers significant revisions to the historiography of dominant cinemas and pioneers accounts of neglected films. His scholarly work includes the publication of books such as 'Martial Law Melodrama: Lino Brocka’s Cinema Politics' (2020), which examines the political inscription in the films of Filipino director Lino Brocka, and 'Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Philippine Cinema' (2010), which explores the decolonial imaginary and anticolonial critique within Filipino cinema. Capino's ongoing projects include a decolonial history of US documentary cinema and a study of queer independent cinema in the Philippines, reflecting his interests in film/visual culture, postcolonial criticism, gender and sexuality studies, and Asian American and Philippine studies. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including Fulbright scholarships, the Andrew Mellon Foundation fellowship, and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Dissertation Award. Capino has also contributed to the field through translations, teleplays, and consultancy work on Philippine cinema. His research and teaching are deeply rooted in his academic background, which includes a Ph.D. in Radio/Television/Film from Northwestern University, and his courses cover documentary film, US imperialism, international cinema, and film theory.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Art
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Art history
• Library science
• World Wide Web
• Literature
• Media studies
• Visual arts

Selected publications

• The Celine Archive: Decolonial and Feminist Approaches to Filipina Lives

  Alon Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies · 2023-08-28

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The domestics are restless!

  Asian Ethnicity · 2023-10-26

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Deep Throat (1972)

  2023-05-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Deep Throat is believed to be one of the most profitable US films released in theaters, despite, or perhaps because of, its independent production well outside the mores and morals of the Hollywood establishment. It brought unprecedented cultural visibility to pornography, screening in over 60 cities, garnering extensive coverage in the mainstream media, and even playing an incidental role in President Nixon’s downfall. Nora Ephron, a magazine columnist who later became a Hollywood director, recalled hearing that Deep Throat was “not only the best film of its kind but actually funny.” Not only did obscene humor figure prominently in the discourse around the film, it is arguably key to its specificity as an object of study. The ribald plot centers on a woman whose clitoris is congenitally misplaced in her throat and can only attain pleasure by performing oral sex on hung men. The central gimmick – the star’s eye-popping renditions of the titular erotic act – is insistently repeated as much for laughs as for titillation. While Deep Throat draws from a tradition of using humor to make the accompanying eroticism alternately less and more pointed, it also seems to be exploring how to create a superior amalgam of comedy and erotica, optimizing the pornographic film’s capacity not just to arouse viewers but generate distinctly cinematic sexual humor as well.

  PublisherDOI

• A HALLUCINATORY HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR:

  Indiana University Press eBooks · 2022-02-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Martial Law Now, as Then

  Social Text · 2021-12-01

  article

  Abstract In the middle of the global pandemic of 2020, as states of emergency were declared in both the Philippines and the United States, Filipinx scholars offer memories and reflections of life under martial law in the Philippines and its aftermath and resonances in the present.

  PublisherDOI

• Film Review: The Nightcrawlers

  Alon Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies · 2021-03-10

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Introduction: New Filipino American Scholarship on the Marcos Era

  Alon Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies · 2021-11-18 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Introduction: New Filipino American Scholarship on the Marcos Era

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 5. Men in Revolt: Two Experiments in Political Cinema

  2020-05-27

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 1. The Country and the City: Social Melodrama and the Symptoms of Authoritarian Rule

  2020-05-27

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Take One and Notes on Reality-Based Porn

  GLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Review Article| June 01 2020 Take One and Notes on Reality-Based Porn José B. Capino José B. Capino José B. Capino is associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has recently published Martial Law Melodrama: Lino Brocka’s Cinema Politics, a book about the political vision of the renowned Filipino director. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google GLQ (2020) 26 (3): 576–581. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8311885 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation José B. Capino; Take One and Notes on Reality-Based Porn. GLQ 1 June 2020; 26 (3): 576–581. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8311885 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsGLQ Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2020 by Duke University Press2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Moving Image Review You do not currently have access to this content.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Martin F. Manalansan

  2 shared

• Celine Parreñas Shimizu

  1 shared

• Robert Diaz

  1 shared

• Allan Punzalan Isaac

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  1 shared

• Josen Masangkay Diaz

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1 shared

• Denise Cruz

  1 shared

• Monica Hanna

  Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center

  1 shared

• Gary Devilles

  Ateneo de Manila University

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Radio/TV/Film

  Northwestern University

Awards & honors

• 2012 grand prize in the cultural studies category from the A…
• Dissertation Award (Grand Prize), Society for Cinema and Med…
• Fulbright Research Fellowship (2016)
• Asian Cultural Council Research Project Grant (2001-2002)
• Prize for Research in the Humanities, Illinois Program for R…