Steven Ross
Steven J. Ross is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. The first person in his family to go to college, Steve received his B.A. from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Philosophy from Oxford University, and a PhD from Princeton University. Ross has written extensively in the areas of film history, social history, and working-class history. He is the author of Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (2011), Movies and American Society (2002), and Workers On the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890 (1985), which was adapted for the screen by Cincinnati unionists and made into a documentary entitled "They Build the City: The Working People of Cincinnati." His book, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998), received the prestigious Theater Library Association Book Award for 1999 and was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the "Best Books of 1998." His Op-Ed pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, International Herald-Tribune, HuffingtonPost, and Washington Independent.
Steve's work on movie stars and politics has led to appearances on "The Today Show," "ABC Evening News," CNN's "American Morning" and "The Situation Room," "Nightline with Ted Koppel," Fox News, and programs broadcast on Canadian, British, and French television—as well as numerous documentaries about Hollywood. He has also lectured at universities throughout the United States and England. Steve is co-founder and co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC.
Steve is delighted to be named a CET Faculty Fellow. A recipient of several USC teaching awards, he hopes to work with faculty on issues regarding large lecture courses and using media and popular culture as primary documents in the classroom.