Mike Budd

Mike Budd is Professor Emeritus of Film and Media Studies in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He is the author of articles on film, television, media and cultural studies, including in Jump Cut, and the editor of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Texts, Contexts, Histories (Rutgers, 1990), the co-author, with Steve Craig and Clay Steinman, of Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture (Rutgers, 1999), and the co-editor of Rethinking Disney: Private Control, Public Dimensions (Wesleyan, 2005). He is active in various progressive political groups, including Higher Education Labor United, faculty union organizing with United Faculty of Florida and social justice organizing with Veterans for Peace and the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY).

Of particular relevance to his essay on The Sympathizer in Jump Cut 63: 

Mike was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and served in Vietnam in 1969-70.  At Florida Atlantic, he has taught about many films about the American war in Vietnam. Half a century after the end of the war, there are still inadequate resources in English for teaching about Vietnamese films about the war, including access to the films themselves. Among the best and least known U.S. documentaries is Sir No Sir!, about the little-known active opposition to the war among U.S. soldiers and veterans. Another outstanding U.S. documentary is the powerful and poetic Regret to Inform (1998, Barbara Sonneborn, 72 min.), focusing on the experiences of women, both widows and combatants. This insightful essay, published by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, provides a valuable critique of the film.

Mike can be reached at mbudd44@gmail.com.