Lucas Hilderbrand is the author of the books
The ‘Before’ Trilogy: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight (2025)
The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After (2023)
Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic (2013)
and
Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright (2009)
as well as numerous essays and articles.
He is Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies at the University of California Irvine. His classes include
The History of Cinema: The Studio Era and The Contemporary Era
Film and Media Theory
Audio Cultures
Representations
Media and Environment
Sex on Screen
Queer Studies
Research Design
UCI Film and Media Studies website
He earned his MA and PhD from New York University and his BA from the University of Minnesota. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner Ernesto and dog Bowie.
Complete bibliography
Monograph Books
The ‘Before’ Trilogy: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight (BFI Film Classics, Bloomsbury, 2025): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/before-trilogy-9781839028045/, peer-reviewed
The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After (Duke University Press, 2023): https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-bars-are-ours, peer-reviewed
Paris Is Burning (Queer Film Classics, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013): https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/P/Paris-Is-Burning
Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright (Duke University Press, 2009): https://www.dukeupress.edu/inherent-vice, peer-reviewed
Excerpts reprinted in:
Video Theories: A Transdisciplinary Reader, eds. Dieter Daniels and Jan Thoben (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Images on the Move: Materiality – Networks – Formats, ed. Olga Maskatova (Transcript, 2021)
Journal Articles
“On the Matter of Blackness in Under the Skin,” JumpCut 57 (fall 2016), available online at https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc57.2016/-HilderbrandUnderSkin/index.html
“The Uncut Version: The Mattachine Society’s Pornographic Epilogue,” Sexualities 19, no. 4 (June 2016)
“Luring Disco Dollies to a Life of Vice: Queer Pop Music’s Moment,” Journal of Popular Music Studies, Vol 25. No. 4 (December 2013), lead essay in the “Trans/Queer” special issue guest edited by Tavia Nyong’o and Francesca Royster
“A Suitcase Full of Vaseline, or Travels in the 1970s Gay World,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September 2013)
“Sex out of Sync: Christmas on Earth’s and Couch’s Queer Soundtracks,” Camera Obscura 83 (September 2013)
“In the Heat of the Moment: Notes on the Past, Present, and Future of Born in Flames,” Women & Performance 23, no 1 (2013), lead essay in the Born in Flames 30th anniversary special issue guest edited by Dean Spade and Craig Willse
“The Art of Distribution: Video on Demand,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Winter 2010)
“YouTube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Fall 2007)
“Retroactivism,” GLQ, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring 2006)
“Grainy Days and Mondays: Superstar and Bootleg Aesthetics,” Camera Obscura, 57 (December 2004), in the “Todd Haynes: A Magnificent Obsession” special issue
Original Book Chapters
“Powertool (1986),” Screening Adult Cinema, eds. Peter Alilunas, Desirae Embrae, and Finley Freibert (Routledge, 2025)
“Trigger Warnings and the Disciplining of Cinema and Media Pedagogy,” The Routledge Companion to Media and Risk, eds. Bishnupriya Ghosh and Bhaskar Sarkar (New York: Routledge, 2020)
“Historical Fantasies: Gay Pornography in the Archives,” invited, peer-reviewed essay in Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s, ed. Carolyn Bronstein and Whitney Strub (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016): https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/190/edited_volume/chapter/2047736/pdf
“Queer Cinema, Queer Writing, Queer Criticism,” invited essay in The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian American Literature, ed. Scott Herring (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
“Moving Images: On Video Art Distribution,” invited original chapter in peer-reviewed anthology and lead essay in Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video, edited by Ming-Yuen Ma and Erika Suderberg (University of Minnesota Press, 2012)
“Mediating Queer Boyhood: Dottie Gets Spanked,” invited essay in The Cinema of Todd Haynes, edited by James Morrison (Wallflower Press, 2007)
“Conceptual Cinephilia: On Jon Routson’s Bootlegs,” invited essay in Cinephilia: Movies, Love, and Memory, edited by Marijke de Valck & Malte Hagener (Universiteit van Amsterdam Press, 2005)
Edited Books, Special Journal Issues, and Dossiers
Peer-reviewed digital exhibition and essay: “The Bars Are Archived: Primary Sources for Gay Bars in America” for Queer Pasts, eds. Marc Stein and Lisa Arellano (ProQuest/Alexander Street, 2024): https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/5641656
Convener and participant, “The Night is Still Young: A Cross-Disciplinary Forum on Queer Nightlife Studies,” The Sociology Quarterly (2025): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00380253.2024.2418365
Co-editor, with James Nisbet, “Visual Culture and the Climate Crisis” dossier, Afterimage 47, no 2 (summer 2020)
Editor, “In Focus: The C and M in SCMS,” Cinema Journal 57, no. 2 (February 2018).
Contribution to In Focus: “The Big Picture: On the Expansiveness of Cinema and Media Studies,” Cinema Journal 57, no. 2 (February 2018).
Co-editor, with David Evans Frantz and Kayleigh Perkov, Cock, Paper, Scissors (exhibition catalogue, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, 2016)
Contribution to catalogue: co-author, “Introduction,” Cock, Paper, Scissors, eds. David Evans Frantz, Kayleigh Perkov, and Lucas Hilderbrand (ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, 2016)
Contribution to catalogue: “Sticky Pages from History: Pornography and Gay Male Print Culture,” Cock, Paper, Scissors, eds. David Evans Frantz, Kayleigh Perkov, and Lucas Hilderbrand (ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, 2016)
Dossier coordinator and introduction author, Under the Skin dossier, JumpCut 57 (fall 2016), available online at http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/index.html
Co-editor, with Lynne Sachs, “Experiments in Documentary,” special issue of Millennium Film Journal, 51 (Spring/Summer 2009)
Contribution for the issue: “Contradiction, Uncertainty, Change: Notes toward an Introduction,” Millennium Film Journal, 51 (Spring/Summer 2009)
Editor, “Media Access: Technologies and Preservation,” special issue of Spectator, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring 2007)
Contributions for the issue: “Introduction” and “An Accidental Institution: Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee: An Interview with Claire Brandt,” Spectator, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring 2007)
Co-editor, with Kate Horsfield, Feedback: The Video Data Bank Catalog of Video Art and Artist Interviews (Temple University Press, 2006) Comprehensive video art catalog and essays by Peggy Phelan, Gregg Bordowitz, Vanalyne Green, and Kate Horsfield.
Academic Commentaries, Columns, Interviews, and Reviews
“The Opening of Constance Penley,” invited tribute, Media Fields (forthcoming)
Book review of Damon Scott, The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco (University of Texas Press, 2024), Journal of American History (March 2025)
“Constitutionally Disruptive: John Greyson in Conversation,’” Afterimage 50:4 (December 2023), 92-97, available online at: https://online.ucpress.edu/afterimage/article-abstract/50/4/92/198834/Constitutionally-DisruptiveJohn-Greyson-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext
“With and Without, Wise and Otherwise, José and José,” invited contribution to a dossier on the publication of José Esteban Muñoz’s The Sense of Brown, edited by Joshua Javier Guzmán and Iván Ramos, Afterimage 49, no 1 (spring 2022), available online at: https://online.ucpress.edu/afterimage/article/49/1/32/120345/With-and-Without-Wise-and-Otherwise-Jose-and-Jose
“Cinema and Media Pedagogy in the Streaming Era” in Streaming Media’s Environmental Impact dossier edited by Laura U. Marks, Media + Environment (October 15, 2020), available online at: https://mediaenviron.org/article/17242-streaming-media-s-environmental-impact
“Watching the End Times from The Good Place,” Public Books (April 20, 2020), available online at: https://www.publicbooks.org/watching-the-end-times-from-the-good-place/
“On Nature Programming, the Anthropocene, and the Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary,” invited contribution to a book forum on Pooja Rangan’s Immediations in The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 7, no 2 (2020)
Book review of Cáel M. Keegan, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Film Quarterly 73, no. 2 (Winter 2019)
Exhibition review of Queer California: Untold Stories, Afterimage 46, no 3 (September 2019)
Exhibition review of Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., “The Worlds Los Angeles Maricóns and Malfloras Made,” X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly 20, no 4 (summer 2018)
“Some of This Actually Happened,” invited commentary, WSQ (Women’s Studies Quarterly) special issue, “The 1970s” 43, no. 3-4 (Fall/Winter 2015)
With Alexandra Juhasz, Debra Levine, and Ricardo Montez, “Downtown’s Queer Asides,” invited commentary, Downtown Film, Video, and TV Culture 1975-2001, ed. Joan Hawkins (Bristol: Intellect Press, 2015)
“Dear Rhys Ernst,” commissioned essay on Rhys Ernst’s Dear Lou Sullivan for Visual AIDS website (March 2015): https://visualaids.org/blog/ernsts-video-reminds-us-that-trans-stories-can-also-be-aids-histories-and-g
“Gay Paree,” invited commentary on writing about Paris Is Burning for The Rover (Montreal, December 2013): http://roverarts.com/2013/12/gay-paree/
“I Wanna Go, or Finding Love in a Hopeless Place,” invited commentary, Media Fields 7 (December 2013): http://mediafieldsjournal.squarespace.com/i-wanna-go/
“Puppets, Pink Felt, and Levi’s Pockets: Materials from the Main Club,” invited commentary, Recaps (Summer 2013): http://recapsmagazine.com/rethink/puppets-pink-felt-and-levis-pockets-materials-from-the-main-club-by-lucas-hilderbrand/
“Harpo Never Scolded Me for My Excesses: An Interview with Wayne Koestenbaum,” Berfrois (May 2012): http://www.berfrois.com/2012/05/berfrois-interviews-wayne-koestenbaum/
“Undateable: Online Dating and the Perversion of Time,” invited column, Flow 13, no 12 (spring 2011): http://flowtv.org/2011/04/undateable/
“It’s Okay to Watch a Show Called Cougar Town,” invited column, Flow 13, no. 8 (winter 2011): http://flowtv.org/2011/02/its-okay-to-watcha-show-called-cougar-town/
“The History of Postmodern: Mark Ronson’s Pop Nostalgia,” invited column, Flow 13, no 3 (fall 2010): http://flowtv.org/2010/11/the-history-of-postmodern-mark-ronson’s-pop-nostalgia
“Sweatin’ Out the Shame,” invited column, Flow 11, no. 12 (spring 2010): http://flowtv.org/?p=4971
“Phonography: Lessons Learned from Teaching Audio Technologies,” invited column, Flow 11, no 7 (winter 2010): http://flowtv.org/?p=4766
“Cinematic Promiscuity: Cinephilia after Videophilia,” invited contribution to cinephilia dossier guest edited by Jonathan Buchsbaum and Elena Gorfinkel, Framework, Vol. 50, No. 1-2 (fall 2009)
“Stage Left: Glee and the Textual Politics of Difference,” invited column, Flow 11, no. 3 (fall 2009): http://flowtv.org/?p=4574
“Rewind: sex, lies, and videotape at 20,” invited column, Flow 10, no. 7 (summer 2009): http://flowtv.org/?p=4246
“Digital Is Not a Noun,” invited column, Flow 10, no. 4 (summer 2009): http://flowtv.org/?p=4126
“Justice Is a Bitch: On Damages as Liberal Revenge Fantasy,” invited column, Flow 10, no. 1 (summer 2009): http://flowtv.org/?p=4014
“’More Than One Way to Love’”: On Kiki and Herb (But Mostly Kiki),” “Diva tribute” for special issue on divas guest edited by Alexander Doty, Camera Obscura, 67 (Spring 2008)
“Adaptation,” peer-reviewed review-essay, Film Quarterly, Vol. 58, Issue 1 (Fall 2004)
Other Writings
“Policing Drag Has a Long History. There’s a Reason Politicians are at It Again,” Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2023, A11; online at: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-04-03/drag-race-lgbtq-bills-tennessee-story-hours-trans-race-television-history
“Searching: Lynne Sachs’ Cinema,” commissioned essay for Lynne Sachs retrospective, San Francisco Cinematheque (April 2010)
“Reflections on The Blindness Series,” commissioned essay for Tran T. Kim-Trang, The Blindness Series DVD box set, Video Data Bank (September 2009)
Reprinted in More Than Meets the Eye, edited by Jesse Lerner, Tran Trang, and Holly Willis (2016): http://scalar.usc.edu/works/more-than-meets-the-eye-the-videos-of-tran-t-kim-trang/index