EDUCATION
2020: University of Southern California, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Ph.D.
Dissertation: “When A Handshake Meant Something: Lawyers, Deal Making,
and the Emergence of New Hollywood”
Committee: Laura Isabel Serna (Chair), J.D. Connor, Catherine Fisk (Berkeley Law), Steven J. Ross (History)
2017: University of Southern California, Graduate Certificate in Visual Studies
2014: Columbia University, Masters of Arts in Film Studies
Thesis: “Apocalypse Noir: Apocalyptic Narratives and Temporal Dislocation Within the Modality of Film Noir”
Advisors: Jane Gaines, Rob King, Nico Baumbach
2011: Columbia University, Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies
EMPLOYMENT
2022-Present: Researcher, International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600)
2021-2022: Lecturer, Department of Film and Theatre, San José State University
2020-2021: Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Southern California
Peer Reviewed Publications
2022: “Millionaires Against Billionaires: The Rise and Fall of the Private Plaintiff Antitrust Lawyer, 1946-1976,” American Journal of Legal History, 62, No. 1 (2022), 88–126.
2022: “Dance, Camera, Dance: Directorial Choreography in the Live Anthology Drama,” Video Essay, Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, 10 (2022): https://vimeo.com/598583550
2021: “When A Handshake Meant Something: The Rise of Entertainment Law in Post-Paramount Hollywood,” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 60, No. 4 (2021), 61–84.
2021: “Hard, Fast, and Brokerage: Irving H. Levin, The Filmakers, and the Birth of Conglomerate Hollywood,” Film History 33, No. 1 (2021), 46–75.
2017: “Putting Penn to Paper: Warner Bros.’s Contract Governance and the Transition to New Hollywood” The Velvet Light Trap 80 (2017), 4–17.
2015: “Networking Agency: Classicism and Post-Classicism in Multiverse Time Travel Films,” Mediascape: UCLA’s Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (2015) http://bit.ly/Labuza_NetworkingAgency
2012: “Billion Dollar Noir: Christopher Nolan and Film Noir as a Blockbuster Genre” Journal of American Studies of Turkey 32 (2012), 65–74.
Edited Volumes
2021: “Under the Electric Cloud: Cinema at Paramount’s Twilight,” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, “Film for the Future,” 62, No. 2 (2021), 242–260.
2021: “Opening the Vault: Media Industry Studies and its Archives,” Editor, Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism 41.2 (2021).
Other Publications
2022: “I Want to Live! (1958),” Screening American Independent Film, eds. Wyatt Phillips and Justin Wyatt, Routledge (2022).
2021: “Lawyers, Deal Making, and the Emergence of New Hollywood” Enterprise & Society, 22, No. 4 (2021), 951–961.
2021: “Masculine Tempos: How Sound Technology Silenced The Women of The Dawn Patrol,” Hard to Get: The Women and Films of Howard Hawks, ed. Sara Freeman, McFarland, Forthcoming 2022.
2014: Approaching The End: Imagining Apocalypse in American Film, Chapel Hill, NC: The Critical Press, October 2014.
Selected Journalism and Public Criticism
“Ten Years After the SAG-AFTRA Merger: Lessons for the Union’s Future,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 2022. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ten-years-after-the-sag-aftra-merger-lessons-for-the-unions-future-1235121637/
“How The Matrix Resurrections Lawsuit Is Really a Warning About Consolidation in Hollywood,” IGN, February 2022. https://www.ign.com/articles/matrix-resurrections-lawsuit-really-warning-about-consolidation
“Hollywood workers are ready to strike over the future of how movies and TV shows are made,” Polygon, October 2021. https://www.polygon.com/22728659/how-iatse-strike-2021-affects-movies-tv-industry
“Inside the Scarlett Johansson/Disney Lawsuit and What It Could Mean for Hollywood Next,” IGN, July 2021. https://www.ign.com/articles/inside-the-scarlett-johansson-disney-lawsuit-mean-hollywood-black-widow
“Op-Ed: How the streaming wars are changing what you watch,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2021, A17. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-07-18/netflix-amazon-hulu-streaming-competition-hollywood-content
“HBO Max isn’t the future of movies — but it is a panicked plan.” Polygon, December 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22151268/hbo-max-2021-warner-bros-releases-movie-theaters-vs-streaming
“4 ways a new Justice Department decision may radically reshape moviegoing,” Polygon, November 2019. https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/20/20974364/justice-department-paramount-decree-disney-netflix-monopoly
“An Uncredited Master Earns Her Sea Legs: Dorothy Arzner and Old Ironsides” Kino Lorber Blu-Ray Supplemental Essay, November 2018.
“Glamour Girl Goes Goofy: Alan Dwan’s Manhandled,” Kino Lorber Blu-Ray Supplemental Essay, April 2018.
“The Museum of Modern Art’s ‘To Save and Project’ Rescues Treasures,” The Village Voice, January 2018. https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/01/23/the-museum-of-modern-arts-to-save-and-project-rescues-treasures/
“Shallow Depth: ‘Son of Saul’ Shows Nothing and Says Nothing,” Los Angeles Review of Books, February 2016. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/shallow-depth-son-of-saul-shows-nothing-and-says-nothing
“‘We Just Did Long Takes Every Time’: Hou Hsiao-Hsien on The Assassin,” Filmmaker Magazine, October 2015. http://filmmakermagazine.com/96104-we-just-did-long-takes-every-time-hou-hsiao-hsien-on-the-assassin/
“The Littlest Outlaw and Chicano Audiences,” Little White Lies, May 2015, pg. 33-34.
“Shock Treatment: The Knick,” Sight & Sound, November 2014, pg 6-7. http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/shock-treatment-knick
“The Two Versions,” Companion Booklet for Red River (Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray Release), October 2013, 52-53.
Reviews, Interviews, and Other Features Appearing In Variety, The Village Voice, The AV Club, LAist,AKLASU Magazine, The Film Stage, and more. For a full list of all articles, please visit www.labuzamovies.com.
Selected Media Appearances
“Are you still watching? Netflix — and its share price — stumble,” Cost of Living with Paul Haavardsrud, CBC/Radio-Canada, May 2022: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2028535875887
“Too Many Subscriptions and Too Much Content: Have Streaming Services Peaked?” KQED’s The Forum, April 2022: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101888937/too-many-subscriptions-and-too-much-content-have-streaming-services-peaked
“Hollywood Blues,” The New Republic, November 2021: https://newrepublic.com/article/164316/hollywood-blues-streaming-era
“The Implications of Scarlett Johansson’s Marvel Lawsuit,” The American Prospect, August 2021: https://prospect.org/culture/the-implications-of-scarlett-johansson-marvel-lawsuit/
“Heads Are Gonna Roll [Inside the lawsuit between Scarlett Johansson and Disney],” Slate Culture Gabfest, August 2021: https://slate.com/podcasts/culture-gabfest/2021/08/the-green-knight-billie-eilish
“How Streaming is Reshaping the Film Industry w/Peter Labuza,” Tech Won’t Save Us, July 2021: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-streaming-is-reshaping-the-film-industry-w-peter-labuza/id1507621076?i=1000530373712
“Peter Labuza on Antitrust, Hollywood, and Big Tech,” The Bulwark Goes Hollywood, Jan. 2021: https://bulwarkhollywood.thebulwark.com/p/peter-labuza-on-antitrust-hollywood
“Pre-Code Montage feat. Peter Labuza,” Film Formally, June 2020: http://sadhillmedia.com/filmformally/2020/5/3/episode-10-labuza
“Peter Labuza on the Legal History of Motion Picture Contracts,” Ipse Dixit, November 2019: https://shows.acast.com/ipse-dixit/episodes/peter-labuza-on-the-legal-history-of-motion-picture-contract
“How Disney has Turned the Film Industry Into a Small World, After All,” Public Seminar, August 2019: https://publicseminar.org/essays/how-disney-has-turned-the-film-industry-into-a-small-world-after-all/
“How Entertainment Lawyers Changed the Hollywood Studio System – Featuring Peter Labuza,” The Fordham Intellectual Property, Media, & Entertainment Law Journal Podcast, February 2019: http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2019/02/12/episode-58-how-entertainment-lawyers-changed-the-hollywood-studio-system-featuring-peter-labuza/
“As Disney swallows Fox, a new era dawns for Hollywood,” AP News, December 2017: https://apnews.com/article/78507cc7a2f64c4eb6b46ee4a29bcdc8
Book Reviews
2022: Hollywood’s Artists: The Directors Guild of America and the Construction of Authorship By Virginia Wright Wexman (Columbia University Press, 2020) and Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production By Kate Fortmueller (University of Texas Press, 2021), Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 61, No. 4 (2022), 196–202.
2018: Hokum! The Early Sound Slapstick Short and Depression-Era Mass Culture by Rob King (University of California Press, 2017), Film Quarterly 71, No. 3 (2018), 110–112.
2016: Film Rhythm After Sound: Technology, Music, and Performance by Lea Jacobs (University of California Press, 2015), Spectator 36 No. 2 (2016), 49–50.
2013: They Live by Jonathan Lethem (Soft Skull Press, 2010), Film Matters 3, No 2. (2013), 71.
2012: Steven Soderbergh by Aaron Baker (University of Illinois Press, 2011), Film Matters 3, No. 1 (2012), 45–46.
Awards and Distinguished Honors
2021: Best Dissertation Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies
2021: Finalist, Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History
2019: Graduate Student Writing Award, “United Arithmetic: Contracts and the Financialization of Executive Labor in the Motion Picture Industry,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies — Media Industries Scholarly Interest Group.
RESEARCH GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS
2021: Small Grant for Legal History Research, American Society of Legal Historians.
2021: Travel Grant, The University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center.
2020: Congressional Research Grant, The Dirksen Congressional Center.
2020: Eisenhower Foundation Research Travel Grant, Eisenhower Presidential Library.
2020: Alfred D. Chandler Travel Grant, Business History Conference.
2019: Endowed Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of Southern California Graduate School.
2018: John E. Rovensky Fellowship in Business and Economic History, The Business History Conference and the University of Illinois Foundation.
2018: Summer Fellowship, Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, Temple University.
2018: Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries Grant to Scholars, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
2017: Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship, The Lilly Library at the University of Indiana, Bloomington.
2017: Fellow, German Historical Institute’s Archival Summer School for Junior Historians.
2017: Visual Studies Graduate Certificate Summer Research Grant, University of Southern California.
2015: Travel Award, University of Southern California Graduate School.
2015: Visual Studies Graduate Certificate Summer Research Grant, University of Southern California.
Conference Presentations
2022: “The Harlem River Consumers Co-Op and the Racial Dynamics of Antitrust,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, April 2022.
2022: “Movie Mad Litigants: The Rise of Private Antitrust Litigation, 1946–1960,” Business History Conference, Mexico City, MX, April 2022.
2022: Discussant, “Culture in Crisis: Entertainment Industries and Economic Change in the United States,” Business History Conference, Mexico City, MX, April 2022.
2021: “Ida Lupino, The Exhibitor Guarantee Plan, and How Exploitation Movies Trumped Her Art,” History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception (HoMER) Annual Conference, Virtual, May 2021.
2021: “The Art of the Deal Maker: David Susskind and Contracting Postwar Artist Culture,” Working with Intellectual Property: Legal Histories of Innovation, Labor, and Creativity, Stanford Center for Law and History, Virtual, April 2021.
2021: “Hard, Fast, and Capital: Ida Lupino and The Art-Business Divide of 1950s Hollywood,” (Panel Chair for “We’re in the Money! Case Studies from American Film History”), The Business History Conference, Virtual, March 2021. [Paper accepted from cancelled 2020 conference]
2021: “The ‘Swoose’ Debate: Television Kinescopes and Disrupting Corporate Authorship,” (Panel Chair for “IP Reconfigured: Copyright Disruptions Across Media History”), Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, Virtual, March 2021. [Paper accepted from cancelled 2020 conference]
2020: “‘A Specific Request for Compliance’: Kirk Douglas, United Artists, and The Auditing Revolution in Hollywood,” Spartacus@60: A Virtual Conference, December 2020.
2019: “‘A Device for Cracking a Concerted Industry-Wide Boycott:’ The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the End of the Hollywood Blacklist” American Society for Legal Historians (ASLH) Annual Conference, Boston, MA, November 2019.
2019: “Martin Gang V. Hollywood: Litigating The Studio System in the 1940s,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, March 2019.
2019: “Movies & Memos,” Seminar Co-Leader with Tanya Goldman, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, March 2019.
2018: “Tinseltown Torts: Martin Gang and the New Deal in Entertainment Law” American Society for Legal Historians (ASLH) Annual Conference, Houston, TX, November 2018.
2018: “The Singing Cowboy’s Crimson Defense: Samuel Williston and Autry v. Republic Productions, Inc. (1947),” Annual Meeting of Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Toronto, CA, March 2018.
2017: “Outside Struggle, Inside Negotiations: The Beverly Hills Bar Association’s Entertainment Law Institute and the Shaping of Legal Discourse in New Hollywood,” Law & Society, 2017 Annual Conference, Mexico City, MX, June 2017.
2017: “‘When a Handshake Meant Something’: How Entertainment Law Contracted the Shape of New Hollywood,” Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA, March 2017.
2017: “The Veil of Independence: The Short Form Joint Venture Contract’s Role In New Hollywood Production,” Annual Meeting of Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Chicago, IL, March 2017.
2016: “Out of Step: Narrative Structure, Agency, and the Hollywood Black Dance Sequence,” First Forum, USC Graduate Student Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Los Angeles, CA, October 2016.
2015: “From Misguided Teens to Real Women: Hollywood Confronts Abortion, 1959-1963,” Film and History Conference, Madison, WI, November 2015.
2015: Respondent for Panel on “Visual/Material Evidence,” Material Evidence: Visual Knowledge Conference, University of Southern California, April 2015.
2015: “In Search of Lost Time, Or: Why Is There No Slow Cinema in America?” Play/Time — University of Toronto Graduate Student Cinema Studies Conference, Toronto, CA, February 2015.
2014: “Kings and Pawns: Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess and ‘Digital Psychology,’” Annual Meeting of Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), Seattle, WA, April 2014.
2012: “Billion Dollar Noir: Christopher Nolan and Film Noir as a Blockbuster Genre,” 33rd SW/TX Pop Culture Association Conference, Albuquerque, NM, February 2012.
2011: “The Evil That Spread Through Yokohama: Hitchcockian Perceptions of Amorality in Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low.” 5th Annual Notre Dame Undergraduate Film and Television Conference, South Bend, IN, April 2011.
Invited Workshops
2018: “From Authors to Artists: Negotiating Intellectual Property Rights and the Migration of Live Television Writers to Hollywood” American Society for Legal Historians (ASLH) Student Research Colloquia, Houston, TX, November 2018.
2018: “United Arithmetic: Legal Contracts and the Financialization of Corporate Governance and Executive Labor in the Motion Picture Industry,” Business and the Law – Historical Perspectives on Legal Change, Workshop at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, June 2018.
2018: “When A Handshake Meant Something: The Emergence of Entertainment Law and The Constitution of Hollywood Art, 1944-1967,” Business History Doctoral Colloquium, Baltimore, MD, April 2018.
Teaching Experience
2022: Alternative Cinema [Experimental and Avant-Garde Film], San José State University (in person)
2022: The Art of Film, San José State University (in person)
2021: Introduction to Film History [1895-1945], San José State University (synchronous online).
2021: Entertainment Law, University of California, Berkeley (synchronous online).
2021: The Art of Film, San José State University (Spring: asynchronous online; Fall: in person).
2021: Law and Society in the Entertainment Industry, University of Southern California (synchronous online).
2020: Movies and Money: Production, Prestige, Power, University of Southern California (synchronous online).
2019: Introduction to Cinema (Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California.
2018: History of International Cinema I (Lead Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California. Mentored the following publications:
Sarah Chow, “Anna May Wong: Navigating Asian American Racial Identity in Early Hollywood” Film Matters, 11, no. 1 (2020): 50-61.
Lauren Mattice, “Actualizing ‘It’: Clara Bow and the Scrutinized Star Persona,” Film Matters, 11, no. 1 (2020): 87-94.
2017: History of International Cinema II (Lead Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California.
2016: History of International Cinema I (Lead Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California.
2016: Introduction to Cinema (Teaching Assistant), University of Southern California.
2013: Topics in World Cinema: Arab and African Cinema (Teaching Assistant), Columbia University.
Invited Teaching
2022: “United States v. Paramount and the Speculative Future of Streaming,” Guest Lecture at the University of Toronto, The Business of Film (Course Instructor: Adam Nayman), Toronto, CA, March 2022.
2021: “Media Industries Studies SIG Publishing Roundtable,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Media Industries Scholarly Interest Group, Online, October 2021.
2021: “From Studio System to New Hollywood: Radicals, Finance, and Art,” Guest Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Global Film History II (Course Instructor: Julia Alekseyeva), Philadelphia, PA, March 2021.
2021: “Podcasting as Film Criticism,” Chapman University, The Practices of Writing About Film (Course Instructor: Emily Carman), Orange County, CA, March 2021.
2021: “Podcasting as Film Criticism,” Guest Lecture at University of Pittsburgh, Seminar in Composition: Film (Course Instructor: Genevieve Newman), Pittsburgh, PA, March 2021.
2020: “The Prospectus: How To Do It and Get to Your Dissertation,” Online Workshop, Cinema and Media Studies Dept., University of Southern California, September 2020.
2018: “Podcasting as Film Criticism,” Guest Lecture at University of Pittsburgh, Contemporary Film (Course Instructor: Katie Bird), Pittsburgh, PA, October 2018.
2018: “Podcasting as Film Criticism,” Guest Lecture at Chapman University, The Practices of Writing About Film (Course Instructor: Luci Marzola), Orange County, CA, April 2018.
2015: “Art House Cinema As A Formal System,” Guest Workshop for the University of California Los Angeles Video Production Crew, March 2015.
2013: “The New Cinephilia and The Color Wheel,” Guest Lecture at The King’s College, Introduction to Film (Course Instructor: Bearden Coleman), New York, NY, November 2013.
Professional and Research Experience
2020-Present: Framing Media Podcast, Host and Editor
2018-2020: Assistant Book Review Editor, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
2012-2020: The Cinephiliacs Podcast, Host and Editor
2016-2018: Writing Fellow, University of Southern California Writing Center
2015-2016: Research Assistant to David Bordwell, Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling (University of Chicago Press, 2017)
2014-2016: Masters of Cinema, Booklet Editor and Researcher for Releases of Red River, Wings, Serpico, Boomerang!, Too Late Blues, The Quiet Man, Shane, That Cold Day In The Park
2013-2014: Rapporteur, Columbia University Seminars: Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation (Bill Luhr and David Sterritt)
Academic Service
Peer Reviewer, Business History Review, 2021.
Co-Chair, SCMS Classical Hollywood Scholarly Interest Group, 2018-2020.
Treasurer, School of Cinematic Arts Graduate Student Council, 2014-2016.
Training Committee, Cinema and Media Studies TA Training, 2016, 2018.
Professional Affiliations and Memberships
Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), 2013-Present
American Society for Legal History (ASLH), 2018-Present
The Business History Conference (BHC), 2018-Present
Peter Labuza 