Alissa Wilkinson Joins NYFCC

On October 27, Alissa Wilkinson, associate professor of English and humanities at The King’s College and Vox.com staff film critic, was selected to join the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle. Professor Wilkinson joins seven other new NYFCC members, including The National Catholic Register’s Steven Greydanus, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, BBC’s Caryn James, and The Atlantic’s David Sims.

“The NYFCC is one of the oldest and most well-respected associations of film critics in the country,” says Professor Wilkinson. “So I’m delighted to be joining their number.” NYFCC chair Eric Kohn of IndieWire said, “We are thrilled to welcome so many strong voices from a variety of publications into the group this year.” On November 30, the NYFCC will vote on its awards for the year’s best films and performances.

“Being a member means I will participate in voting for the year-end awards, but it’s also a welcome recognition (for me) of a lot of years of hard work!” says Wilkinson.

Last spring, Professor Wilkinson was also chosen as an Art of Nonfiction writing fellow by the Sundance Institute. “The community of film critics is full of some really remarkable, smart, interesting people with diverse perspectives and talent, and I’m glad I can be part of that community,” she says.

The pulse of film, perhaps the most popular art form of our time, is often the pulse of our culture. Film explores some of the greatest questions, such as what it means to be human. And today more and more talented storytellers are gaining access to the canvas of screens big and small. “The best thing happening in film right now is the push to diversify perspectives, images, and voices on screen,” says Wilkinson. “For a long time, film in America has been dominated by a particular perspective—usually white, male, and relatively affluent. But a variety of factors (technological, philosophical, and more) are pushing for a wider array of people to be involved in the industry, which doesn’t just make it a safer place for people to hash out what it means to be human but also can have a profound effect on shaping the imagination of audiences.”

Before joining Vox.com in 2016, Professor Wilkinson was chief film critic at Christianity Today and a prolific writer and editor for a variety of publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Books & Culture, Rolling Stone, Comment, and RogerEbert.com. This past summer she led a workshop entitled “The Art of Criticism” at Image Journal’s annual Glen Workshop, and she continues to teach the art of criticism to her students at King’s. The goal of art criticism, says Wilkinson, is “to make new art (a piece of writing) that expands and explores an existing work of art. So my job is to write well and try to watch well.”

The work of art criticism is itself a work of art.