
Dr. Benshoff is known primarily for his work on queer sexualities and the horror film, as well as more broad topics within horror studies and LGBTQ+ film studies. He is the author of Monsters in the Closet: Homosexualitiy and the Horror Film (Manchester University Press, 1997), Dark Shadows (Wayne State University Press, 2011), and editor of A Companion to the Horror Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014). He has two books on LGBTQ+ film history and theory: Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America (co-written with Sean Griffin for Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), and Queer Cinema: The Film Reader (co-edited with Sean Griffin for Routledge, 2004). He is also the author of one textbook: Film and Television Analysis: An Introduction to Theory, Methods, and Approaches (Routledge, 2015), and co-author of another: America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Movies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021 [2009, 2004]). Benshoff's numerous other essays and book chapters explore topics such as blaxploitation horror films, Hollywood LSD films, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Milk (2008), Twilight (2008), and straight-to-video gay niche horror. Selections from Monsters in the Closet continue to be reprinted in recent anthologies dedicated to theoretical approaches to the horror film.
For the Women & Gender Studies Program, Dr. Benshoff teaches "Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Film and Video" and "Gender and Sexuality in the Horror Film." Both classes are 4000/5000 level "meets with" classes open to both undergraduates and graduate students.
For any questions, email benshoff@unt.edu