Brennan Ryan 

Writer / Researcher

I'm a writer and researcher from Las Vegas, Nevada currently based out of Los Angeles. In May 2025, I completed my M.A. in Cinema and Media Studies at USC. I earned my B.A. in English Literature from Arizona State University. My honors thesis centered on the commingling of postmodern aesthetics and progressive political critique in the recent films of Spike Lee and Adam McKay.

While at USC, I wrote for USC’s journal for film and television criticism Spectator and was awarded an Annenberg Fellowship for the 2024-25 academic year. I also presented “Everything is in Irma Vep”: On Assayas’s Self-Reflexive Remakes of Feuillade’s Les Vampires” at NYU’s 2025 Cinema Studies Conference and will be presenting my graduate capstone at USC’s inaugural Hollywood Conference in July 2025. That project centers on Warner Bros.’ first adaptation of Edna Ferber’s novel So Big (1932) and the studio’s commodification of a critique of capital accumulation in the wake of the Great Depression.  

My research interests include ideology critique in contemporary world cinema, adaptation, studio identity, post- and metamodernism and transnational film aesthetics. When not on campus, I'm usually at the movies or watching the Mets.