B.A., English, UNC-Chapel Hill
M.A.Ed., Wake Forest University
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate, Women’s and Gender Studies, UNC-Greensboro
Ph.D., Educational Studies with a concentration in Cultural Foundations, UNC-Greensboro
Chad E. Harris’s Ph.D. in cultural foundations of education integrates philosophy
of education, sociology of education, history of education, critical theory and pedagogy,
and cultural studies. He specializes in philosophy of education; film phenomenology;
film reception; podcast studies; critical phenomenology; and women’s, gender, and
sexuality studies. With his dissertation, “Educational Viewing Meets Educational Conversation:
Phenomenology, Classrooms, and Film Reception,” he rethinks and expands “educational”
and “classroom.”
Dr. Harris has also presented on and published in critical media studies, specializing
in depictions of teachers, students, and administrators in film and on television.
Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he taught eleventh and twelfth grade English
and speech and debate right outside of Winston-Salem, NC.
On the undergraduate level, prior to joining ETSU, Dr. Harris taught cultural foundations
of education before transitioning into philosophy of education. He is executive at
large on the board of directors for a/perture cinema, Winston-Salem’s art house cinema,
and he is curator and programmer for short films for OUT at the Movies International
Film Festival, also in Winston-Salem.
from Dr. Harris about his research:
I study and research film reception through critical phenomenology, cultural foundations
of education, and cultural studies. Motion pictures have become a ubiquitous and accessible
art form. As such, film is sought out, but it is also taken for granted. I think that
our reactions to the films we watch (and do not watch) reveal a great deal about our
assumptions about the world and about the ways in which we live, think, and feel.
So, I ask those questions, which involve questions of what we pay attention to and
questions of what we value in our private and public lives.