Leslie Midkiff DeBauche graduated from the University of Iowa (BA and MA) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD) where she received her degree from the Communication Arts Department. She has taught at UWSP since 1987. She teaches Introduction to the Art of Film nearly every semester and recently had begun to teach a course she conceived with her colleague Liz Fakazis focusing on understanding and making narrative and non-narrative stories using digital media. This semester, she is absolutely thrilled to be teaching a special, one-time only class in an inter-college series called COFAC Creates. This time COFAC will Create PIRATE MOVIES. Students drawn from each department in the college—who have spent the summer reading Treasure Island, historical essays on matters piratical, and biographies of Blackbeard and Anne Bonney--will work with visiting authors, film-makers, and composers, and they will create films, music, and choreographed combat to be performed at a concert by the University Orchestra in November. At this time a composition called The Far Tortoogas,” by composer Charlie Barnett will have its world premiere accompanied by a film to-be-produced by students in the pirate crew, er pirate class. Arrrrrrrrrr, mateys!

DeBauche’s scholarship focuses on silent film, and she is particularly interested in the history and social function of movies in the World War I era. Her first book, Reel Patriotism, the Movies and World War I, looked at the way the film industry and the US government worked together during WWI. Currently, she is studying a fictional character, the American Girl, who often appeared in movies during this same time period and who was frequently played by the biggest movie stars of the day like Mary Pickford and Billie Burke. She is interested in the way this character, and the actresses who portrayed her, wended their way through popular culture including fashion, advertising, and the movies, and the way that their fictional lives touched the real lives of actual girls in the United States.

Leslie is also excited about and participating in the campaign to build a new, bigger, better Central Wisconsin Children’s Museum.

Q While teaching students is truly a high and noble calling in life, what kinds of things do your students teach you?

A  One of the reasons I give essay questions on final exams in the film classes I teach is that I look forward to gaining new insights into the movies I love and think I know so well. It never fails that students will see or hear something in a film—say Hitchcock’s Rear Window, that I hadn’t noticed before or they will put the formal pieces—narrative and editing, or sound and cinematography-- together in different, perceptive, and sometimes provocative ways. It’s always interesting and often exciting to see how students can deploy the critical tools I try to provide in class to craft thoughtful and original interpretations.

Q The media saavy of today's students is a frequent topic of discussion. Where do you see most the awareness and even expertise among students today that perhaps wasn't there when you began teaching---is it more in technology, content, or both?

A  Some students come to UWSP quite adept with hardware and software and I am very grateful that many are also very gracious and help me out when machines and applications turn wonky in class. I think the point of college, at least in the liberal arts courses that I teach, is to introduce students to ideas, critical methods, facts, and the rich history of film, so that they can create art and effective communication with the technology at hand and all its iterations to come.

Q How do you describe UWSP as a community? Are the bonds among faculty members, within the colleges and then across the university strong, or could they be stronger?

A  I have taught at UWSP since I earned my PhD in 1987. Both my teaching and my scholarship have been shaped, enriched, and improved by my wonderful colleagues throughout the colleges of the UWSP.

I might even say that my colleagues have sustained me—when I am confronted with a challenging pedagogical problem, a dicey student issue, or when I am stumped, frustrated, or thrilled about something I have found in my own research. I am so grateful to these busy, smart, funny, and kind people who will give me their time and their thoughts and frequently the bibliography I need to help solve problems that arise as I work on my classes or on my research and scholarship.

Q What do you do to unplug from UWSP, to relax and get away?

A  I am so lucky that my work is also my pleasure. I am also lucky that two of the best places in the world to watch the sorts of movies I love—silent and slightly less old—are in Italy. When I attend the Silent Film Festival in Pordenone, Italy, and the Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, (see http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/giornate/edizione2008.html and          http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/10/features.culture) I am, paradoxically blown away by the storytelling power of film, and so engaged in figuring out how these movies work to make me think and laugh and cry and gasp, that I believe there is nothing better in the world. And, sometimes, closer to home, I can walk to Rogers Cinema with my children Dillon, Harry, and Sally and watch Wall-e on the mega-screen at a matinee that packs the house. For me, it’s paradise—with popcorn.

Q What do you like best about your job?

A  This job pays me to watch, consider, research and write about movies! I get to share what I know and what I think with students who frequently share my passion for stories told on film and who tell me about the movies that they admire or are moved by. I enjoy the give and take, discussion, and debate when we analyze movies in class. I get real pleasure out of planning classes—figuring out what order to present ideas in, what to include what to leave out, how to convey information, how to help students to understand facts, techniques, history, and ideas—and how to convince students that, say, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, is just about perfect.

I continue to find my discipline of film history fascinating and intellectually sustaining. One day, a few years ago, I had a UPDC grant to work on a chapter of the book I am grappling with, in New York City. This particular morning I was in a park midway between the Museum of the City of New York where I had just finished for the day, and the Billy Rose Library for Film and Theater Research at Lincoln Center where I would spend the afternoon reading newspapers, scrapbooks, and scripts pertaining to the career of Billie Burke (the Good Witch Glenda!) in the 1910s. I happened to stop, noticed the sun was shining, the air was cool, the park was gorgeous, and I had just left one rich and amazing archive and had the whole afternoon to discover facts and have ideas in another. I thought I had never been so happy. Working at UWSP gives me the resources and the encouragement to do work I find fulfilling. It provides me with colleagues and students who listen, ask questions, and challenge me. Most of the time this is a great job—always changing and full of possibilities.