Professor, Department of Media Studies
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
About Dr. Edwards.....
Emily Edwards began her media career as a Journalist, reporting for ABC and NBC affiliates in Alabama and Tennessee. She has written and produced news stories and documentaries for both radio and television. In the early 1970s, when employees in small and medium market stations wore many hats, Edwards wrote, produced, and directed television news, commercials, and public service programs. In 1984 she earned a Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and moved back to Alabama to direct the broadcasting program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 1987, Dr. Edwards joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she is now a professor in the Department of Media Studies.
Edwards is the producer or director of more than seventeen films --from narrative feature films, to documentaries, animations and experimental films. Edwards has also published books and articles on documentary filmmaking, popular music, popular media and the occult and popular culture.
Her nationally distributed documentaries include: Dead Heads: An American Subculture, Wondrous Events: Foundations of Folk Belief and Wondrous Healing. Edwards is published in TDR(The Drama Review), NARAS Journal, Creative Scriptwriting, Popular Music and Society, Southern Folklore, The Southern Communication Journal, and Gender Roles among others. She contributed chapters to the following books: Current Research in Film, A Haunting Question, and Adolescents and Their Music. Her book, Metaphysical Media:The Occult Experience in Popular Culture was published in 2005 by Southern Illinois University Press.
Edwards has written, produced and directed several feature films including Dead Write, Root Doctor, Scripture Cake and Bone Creek. All have been film festival selections at many film festivals and have won awards for the screenplay, music, and cinematography. See Carolina Collaborations for more information about her films.