Dr. Ronald Helfrich Jnr.
Education:
2011: Ph.D, University at Albany, Albany, New York
Course: History
Dissertation: Idols of the Tribes: An Intellectual and Critical History of 19th and 20th
Century Mormon Studies
1989: MA, University at Albany, Albany, New York
Course: Cultural Anthropology and History
Thesis: The Quakers: Resistance Movement or Social Movement?
1983: BA, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Major: Religious Studies (Biblical Studies emphasis)
Senior proseminar paper: The Tales of Samson
Admitted to postgraduate work at the University of Chicago (social theory and social
thought), the University at Kansas (sociology), Queen’s University, Kingston (history),
the University of Toronto (theology), Latrobe University (history research under Rhys
Isaac), and the University or Warwick (history research under J.E. Smyth)
Professional and Teaching Experience:
2010-present: Lecturer, Departments of History and Communication, SUNY College at
Oneonta, Oneonta, New York.
2006-2012 Adjunct Instructor, Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Troy, New York.
2006-2010: Lecturer, Department of History and Department of Communication,
University at Albany, Albany, New York,
2006, 2008-2010: Lecturer, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History, SUNY
Institute of Technology, Utica, New York.
2000-2002: Acquisitions Editor, SUNY Press, Albany, New York.
1999-2000: Assistant Editor, Encyclopedia of New York State, Syracuse University
Press, Albany, New York.
1997-1998: Lecturer, Department of History, University at Albany, Albany, New York.
1991-1992: Instructor and Researcher, Department of Sociology, Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah.
1984-1986: Assistant Acquisitions Librarian, Science/Engineering Library, Southern
Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
Courses Taught:
The West and the World from 1400 to the Present, Department of History, SUNY IT
Making of the Modern World, Department of History, SUNY College at Oneonta
War in Afghanistan, Science and Technology Studies, RPI
Introductory European History from Prehistory to 1600, Department of History,
University at Albany
Introductory European History from 1500 to the Present, Department of History,
University at Albany
Introductory American History from Settlement to the Civil War,
Department of History, University at Albany, and Science and Technology Studies, RPI
Introductory American History from the Gilded Age to the Present, Department of
History, University at Albany, Science and Technology Studies, RPI, Department of
History, SUNY IT, SUNY Cobleskill
Online Course, American History from the Civil War to Today, University at Albany
America in the Sixties
Western American Environmental History, Department of History, University at Albany
The Idiot Box: The History of Television, Department of Communication, University at
Albany
Online Course, The Idiot Box: The History of Television, Department of
Communication, University at Albany
Introduction to Communication, Department of Communication Arts, SUNY College at
Oneonta
Mass Media and Society, Department of Communication Arts, SUNY College at
Oneonta
Fundamentals of Broadcasting, Department of Communication Arts, SUNY College at
Oneonta
Just the Facts: Nonfiction Television, Programme in Journalism, University at Albany
Introduction to Sociology, Department of Sociology, SUNY College at Oneonta
Social Problems, SUNY Cobleskill
Social Stratification, Department of Sociology, BYU
Religion and Society, Science and Technology Studies, RPI
Introductory Cultural Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University at Albany
Other
I taught the first ever Environmental History and History of Television classes at SUNY
Albany
Academic Interests:
Historiography and Social Theory
Comparative Study of Ethnocentrisms
Comparative Study of Identities
Comparative Study of Community
Comparative Study of Meaning Systems
Intellectual History
History and Sociology of Academic Knowledge
Comparative History
Atlantic History
Modern European History (Post-Enlightenment Europe, Nineteenth and Twentieth
Century Europe, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century France, Soviet and Russian
History)
Comparative Settler Societies (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Settler Societies and
their Cinemas and Television)
North American History (Jacksonian America, the US Progressive Era, US History
Since World War Two, the US and Canadian Wests, Twentieth Century Canada)
Social Movements and Cultural Movements (Theories, Culture Wars, Mormonism)
Religious History (secularisation/sacralisation, new religious movements, North
American Protestantism, Mormonism)
Environmental History (General, US and Canadian Wests)
Film History (General, Theory, France, USSR and Russia, US, Auteurism)
Television History (General, US TV, British TV, Theory, Buffy Studies)
Book
In Search of the Golden Key: Reading and Rereading Mormonism, University of Utah
Press, under consideration
Book Chapters
“’Note to Self, Religion Freaky’: When Buffy Met Biblical Studies”, in PopMatters, Joss
Whedon: The Complete Companion: The TV Series, the Movies, the Comic Books and
More (London: Titan Books, revised and updated edition, 2015), pp. 37-48
“’Note to Self, Religion Freaky’: When Buffy Met Biblical Studies”, in PopMatters, Joss
Whedon: The Complete Companion: The TV Series, the Movies, the Comic Books and
More: The Essential Guide to the Whedonverse (London: Titan Books, 2012), pp. 37-48
Published Papers
“What Can a Hippie Contribute to our Community?”: Culture Wars, Moral Panics, and
the Woodstock Festival, New York History, Vol. 91, No. 3, Summer 2010, pages 221-243.
“’Note to self, religion freaky’: When Buffy Met Biblical Studies”, PopMatters, Spotlight
on Joss Whedon, 7 March 2011.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/137557-note-to-self-religion-freaky-when-buffymet-biblical-studies/
Other Papers (Available at Academia.edu)
“Early Adventures in Auteurland: Rereading the Classics of American Auteurism and
Anti-Auteurism”
“Are We Ourselves?: Notes Toward a Prehistory and History of Identity”
“’In Time and Eternity”: Symbols in Mormon History”
“More Than a Scandinavian Night: Fobrydelsen, Nordic Noir, and Cultures of Criticism”
“Reading and Rereading Mormon Origins: Putting Mormon Origins in Their Broader
Contexts”
“Reading Readings of the French Revolution”
“(Re)living the Principle: Rereading Mormon Polygamy”
“’She’s Got the Look’: Binaries and the Culture of Anthropology”
“Social Movement Theory and the French Revolution: Some Thoughts”
“Three Ideologies in Search of the American West: Reading Worster, White, and
Limerick”
“This Silence Gets us Nowhere: Key Symbols and Anglo American Quakerism”
Reviews
“Child of Promise”, Review of Valeen Tippetts Avery's From Mission To Madness, HAMREL, H-Net, the Humanities Online, 29 February 1999.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2810
“Review of Anne Billson’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio,
and Television 27.4 (October 2007), pp. 601-602.
“Review of Rob Thomas’s Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica
Mars, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 28.3 (August 2008), pp. 433435.
“Review of Walter Metz’s Bewitched, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television,
29:1 (April 2009), pp. 150-151.
“Review of Jane Espenson’s Finding Serenity and Serenity Found”, Historical Journal of
Film, Radio, and Television, 29:1 (April 2009), pp. 151-153.
“Review of M*A*S*H* by David Scott Diffrient”, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and
Television, 30:1 (March 2010), pp. 151-152.
“Review of Angel by Stacey Abbott, Journal of Popular Culture, 43:2 (April 2010), pp.
419-420.
“Review of Buffy Meets the Academy: Essays on the Episodes and Scripts as Texts edited
by Kevin Durand”, Journal of Popular Culture, 43:3 (June 2010), pp. 652-653.
“Review of Sex and the City by Deborah Jermyn”, Journal of Popular Culture, 43:3
(June 2010), pp. 662-663.
“Review of Rhonda Wilcox’s and Tanya Cochran’s Investigating Firefly and Serenity:
Science Fiction on the Frontier, Scope: An Online Journal of Film and TV, 18 (October
2010.
http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/bookreview.php?issue=18&id=1210
Conference Papers and Commentaries
“What Can a Hippie Contribute to our Community?”: Culture Wars, Moral Panics, and
the Woodstock Festival, Popular Culture and American Culture Association National
Conference, New Orleans, 9 April 2009.
Comment: “Revival”, Conference on New York State History, 8 June 2007
Comment: “Church and State”, Conference on New York State History, 8 June 2007
(filled in for commentator who was unable to attend)
“’Note to self, religion freaky’: When Buffy Met Biblical Studies”, Buffy
Symposium: Get to the Point: Issues at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, SUNY
Oneonta, Oneonta, New York, 7 November 2009
Lectures
“Reading Watcher’s Watching: Notes on Ethnographic Cinema”, Documentary Studies
251, Introduction to Documentary Studies, Honour’s section, University at Albany, 2009
On Line Projects
Developed Blackboard US History from Reconstruction to Today Course
Developed Blackboard The Idiot Box: History of Television Course
Current Research
A Kingdom of Priests and Ladies: Manufacturing Gender in Primitive Mormonism
Lights, Camera, Movie: The History of a Journal
‘I want to be an instamatic’: Poly Styrene, X-Ray Spex, the Semiological Revolution, and
the Critique of Consumerism
The Suffragist Movement Will Be Televised: Shoulder to Shoulder
The Show That Knew Too Much: American and Canadian Exceptionalism and Due
South
The Almost BBC: Fiction on PBS
Theses Read
“Big Screen in a Small Town: Navigating Modernity with William Smalley’s Theatre in
Cooperstown, New York”, Rebecca Hill Ortenberg, MA Thesis, SUNY College at
Oneonta and Cooperstown Graduate Program
Administrative
Involved in discussions on the development of a history core curriculum, College of the
Humanities and Social Sciences, RPI
Faculty liason between Department of Sociology and Sociology Club, BYU