"Channel Academic is an amazing step forward in global 
 Film Studies. Here is definitely a publisher that will add
deeply and meaningfully to scholarship in the film."
—Gary D. Rhodes

In 2001, BearManor Media debuted with a passion for publishing writing on classic cinema and television. BearManor now offers a catalog of over 2000 titles in print, ebook, and audiobook formats, covering classic stars, directors, genres, and a variety of themes on screen and radio, from silent comedy to women in horror and contemporary series. The publisher began expanding in 2024, when it acquired its first imprint, Theme Park Press. 

BearManor is thrilled to announce the launch of its scholarly imprint, Channel Academic Publishing. With the parent line’s focus on popular writing on media, Channel Academic will serve as a peer-reviewed imprint dedicated to film, television, and genre studies in other media featuring top scholars and writers.

After a consulting period between BearManor’s founder and publisher, Ben Ohmart, and advisory editor Gary D. Rhodes, the press is thrilled to announce Matthew Sorrento as the Editorial Director of Channel Academic. Aiming to connect the author base of BearManor with the scholarly community, Sorrento and Ohmart now offer several series, with a focus on short monographs of 30-40k words and longer studies, with series editors Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Eugen Bacon coming on board. 

Channel Academic’s series and forthcoming titles include:

Actors in Conversation, edited volumes of interviews with prominent performers in cinema, television, or the stage:

      Titles forthcoming*

Black Speculative, African Horror, and Cross-Genre Media Monographs (series editor: Eugen Bacon), shorter monographs on single titles and longer studies on topics in Black speculative, African horror, and genre benders—single-authored or edited essay anthologies:

• The Brother from Another Planet:  The Voiceless Tongue, Afrofuturist Silence, and Somatic Liberation by Audrey T. Williams

Contemporary TV Classics, shorter monographs analyzing recent standout television series:

• Downton Abbey (ITV): The Estate Through the Eras by Ellen Hernandez DATE
• Line of Duty (BBC): Tradition and the Contemporary Procedural by Ken Hall

Crime Classics, shorter monographs on single titles featuring the theme in film, television, fiction, and other media, with a close study of the work’s importance to genre and the history of its media form:

• Kiss Me Deadly: In Search of Noir's Great Whatsit by Woody Haut (from BearManor Crime Inc.) DATE
• Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion: Excavating the Repression of Civilization by Roberto Curti
• Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952): Citizen Ford and American Culture by M. Keith Booker
• The Killers (1946): The Steps of Fate by Thomas M. Puhr
• The Killing: The Reconstructed Heist by Roberto Curti
• The Lady from Shanghai: Film Noir’s Hall of Mirrors by James Morrison
• Scarface (1932): Roaring Genre and Authorship by Jeremy Carr
• The Untouchables (1959-63): Semidocumentary Noir on the Small Screen by Ron Wilson

Critics of the 21st Century, collected moving-image and genre criticism by leading voices:

• Girls and Other Monsters: Writing on Film, 2005-2025, by Alexandra-Heller Nicholas

Indie Film Notebooks, longer volumes collecting script versions, archival documents, and related ephemera on a given film:

• The Grand Inquisitor by Eddie Muller, edited by Matthew Sorrento and Roger C. Memos
• The Saddest Music in the World by Guy Maddin and George Toles, edited by Matthew Sorrento

"I Worked With...." interview collections with industry members that have collaborated with known star, writers, or director:

      Titles forthcoming*

Music and Cult Film/TV, shorter monographs analyzing the importance of music in cult moving image media:

• Josh’s Blair Witch Mix: An Absent Soundtrack Found by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas DATE

Rediscovered Classics, shorter monographs offering a close study of an ignored classic in cinema:

• Brokeback Mountain: History Through Genre by Robert K. Lightning
• Win Win: The Sports Film and Tragicomedy by Justin Muchnick

Women Horror Directors (Series Editor: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas), shorter single-title monographs on horror releases directed by women:

      Titles forthcoming*

For authors or volume editors interested in sending a query or a proposal, please visit our submissions page. If you are interested in joining the editorial or advisory board for a series, please contact Editorial Director Matthew Sorrento or Advisory Editor Gary D. Rhodes. 

Matthew Sorrento is editorial director of Channel Academic and teaches film studies at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. He also serves as editor-in-chief of Film International and Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon.