Nancy Cook, Associate Professor of English studied film history and criticism at San Diego State University, Occidental College, and SUNY-Buffalo.  At URI she has taught courses in American film genres, including the Western, popular genres and representations of sexuality and romance in popular genres. 

Her scholarly work has included essays on representations of race in ethnographic film, the Western, Vietnam War films, drive-ins, and animal "snuff " films. She also has interests in landscape and film, location studies, film genre studies, and  the representations of nature in film.