Headshot of Dr.Abigail  Cheever

Dr. Abigail Cheever

Associate Professor of English
  • Profile

    Dr. Cheever’s research focuses on the film and literature of the United States from the years immediately following World War II to the end of the twentieth century. Her first book, Real Phonies: Cultures of Authenticity in Post World War II America examined the twinned phenomena of phoniness and personal authenticity in American culture.  Her current book project focuses on the concept of professionalization in Hollywood film from the 1940s and 1950s to the present.

    Dr. Cheever primarily teaches courses in film studies and post-1945 American literatures. Frequently taught courses include: the Introduction to Film Studies; Conspiracy Film from the Cold War and After; Film Melodrama and the Women’s Movement 1940 – 1990; the Films of Alfred Hitchcock; Postwar American Film and Fiction; and Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Genre of Film Noir, among others.

  • Publications
    Books

    Real Phonies: Cultures of Authenticity in Post World War II America. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2010.

    Journal Articles

    “‘The Man He Almost Is’: Jerry Maguire and Judith Butler.” Arizona Quarterly, 62.4 (Winter 2006).

    Cheever, A. (2000) Prozac Americans: Depression, Identity, and Selfhood. Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 46, no. 3, 346-368.

    Book Chapters

    Cheever, A. "The Limitations of Authenticity." in The Romance of Authenticity: The Cultural Politics of Regional and Ethnic Literatures. Ed. Jeff Karem. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004.