Daniel Bernardi

Daniel Bernardi, Ph.D.
Born	June 16, 1964 (1964-06-16) (age 47) San Juan, Puerto Rico
Fields	media studies, cultural studies, narrative theory
Institutions	San Francisco State University, United States Navy Reserves
Alma mater	University of Arizona, UCLA
Spouse	Helen Na

Daniel Bernardi (born 1964) is Professor and Chair of the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Bernardi earned a Bachelor of Arts in Radio-TV (1984) and a Masters of Arts in Media Arts (1988) from the University of Arizona. He went on to earn a PhD in Film and Television Studies from UCLA (1994). His main academic interests are: media studies, cultural studies, narrative theory, and rumors as narrative IEDS. His work in media, which is perhaps most known, emphasizes whiteness as a historical formation of meanings. Borrowing from Michael Omi and Howard Winant's theory of racial formation, he argues that whiteness is a historically powerful set of meanings that serves to either implicitly or explicitly dominate the shifting and reforming meaning of race in U.S. media.

Career

Bernardi has taught film, television and new media at UCLA (1999 and 2000), UC Riverside (1997–1998), the University of Arizona (1999–2004), Arizona State University (2004–2011), and SFSU (2011-Present). He was awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Followship (1994), a UC President's Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1995–1997), and a Fulbright Fellowship (2009). He declined the Fulbright Fellowship. From 1998 to 2000, he worked for the Sci-Fi Channel as a consultant, writer and producer/host of the web feature Future Now (since deleted).

Bernardi is also an officer in the United States Navy Reserves. He has served at sea on the USS Coronado, the USS John C. Stennis, the USS Blue Ridge, and the USS Cleveland (LPD7), as well as at shore in Italy, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and at the Pentagon with the Chief of Navy Information. From May 2009 to February 2010 he was recalled to Active Duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Iraq, Bernardi served with US Special Forces as the Public Affairs Officer for Special Operations Task Force-Central, where he trained Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) and Emergency Response Brigade (ERB) Soldiers on combat camera and media operations. He also managed US media embeds, including CNN, NBC and AP, and US Army and US Navy journalists and photographers. In 2011 he returned to Active Duty for nine months and served as the Mission Public Affairs Officer for Pacific Partnership 2011, an annual humanitarian assistance initiative sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Bernardi managed a team of military (U.S., Australian and New Zealand) and NGO (Project Hope) photographers, videographers and writers assigned to document and report on the mission.

Bibliography

As author

• Explosive Narratives: Rumors, Islamist Extremism and the Struggle for Strategic Influence (co-authored). 2012. Rutgers University Press.

Bernardi and his co-authors characterize rumors as bits and pieces of prevailing narrative systems and local cultural artifacts, and that their anonymous origin and dubious truth claims afford them a type of concealment until their effects are known and the damage is done. Focusing on the impact of rumors on counterinsurgency operations (Iraq), counter terrorism whisper campaigns (Indonesia), and civil disobedience online (Singapore), they argue that rumors are narrative IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Device, in that they’re constructed of locally available materials and hidden in the landscape until detonation. Bernardi and his co-authors see rumors as similarly ad hoc, constructed of bits and pieces of narrative systems, and lying unseen to the military information operator, diplomat, civic outreach coordinator, or business strategist until exploding and disrupting expensive and highly wrought communication campaigns.

• Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. 1998. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813524660

Bernardi traces the shifting and reforming meaning of race articulated throughout the Star Trek television series, feature films, and fan community, investigating and, in his word, "politicizing" the presentation of race in Star Trek in the original series of the 1960s, the feature films and television spin-offs of the 1980s and 1990s, and the current fan community on the Internet. Through both critical and historical analysis, he proposes a method of studying the framing of race in popular film and television that integrates sociology, critical theory and cultural studies. Bernardi goes on to examine the representational and narrative functions of race in Star Trek and explores how the meaning of "race" in the science fiction series has been facilitated or constrained by creative and network decision-making, by genre, by intertextuality, and by fans. He interprets how the changing social and political movements of the times have influenced the production and meaning of "Trek" texts and the ways in which the ongoing series negotiated and reflected these turbulent histories. Unpopular with many Trekkers, Star Trek and History went into a second printing after a year of its original publication.

As editor

• The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema. 1996. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813522765
• Classic Hollywood/Classic Whiteness. 2001. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816632391
• The Persistance of Whiteness. 2007. Routledge. ISBN 0415774128
• Filming Difference: Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers on Gender, Race and Sexuality in Film. 2009. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292719744

In these books, Bernardi relies on a range of scholars to show how race in general and whiteness in particular formed unique representational, narrational, and institutional patterns across U.S. film history. The introductions to each book set out a broad theory of whiteness in American film that, in brief, positions whiteness as a performance about who passes and who doesn't pass as white — and what it means in specific films and periods of film history to either pass or not pass as white. The last book in the series, Filming Difference, includes essays and interviews by filmmakers who address critically and creatively how they go about representing race, gender and sexuality in their work. .

References

• "Alien Concepts." Arizona Daily Star. September 30, 1999.

• Asimov, Nanette. "Researchers help U.S. Military track, defuse rumors." San Francisco Chronicle. October 14, 2011.

• "Bernardi and Sandler on Set of The Shield." Film and Media Studies Website at Arizona State University.

• "Prof. Daniel Bernardi on Star Trek and Race." Trekdom - Star Trek Fanzine. June 25, 2007.

• Bernardi, Daniel. The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema. 1996. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813522765

• Bernardi, Daniel. Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. 1998. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813524660

• Bernardi, Daniel. "Where's the Beef?" Flow On-line, Volume 2. April 1, 2005.

• Cohen, Stacey Cara. "Visit the fifth dimension beyond that which is know to man OnSite." Daily Herald. December 4, 1998.

• Di Rado, Alicia. "Boldly Going to College Fans of `Star Trek' TV series and movies have the chance to debate meaning and metaphor of cult hit's characters in campus clubs-and in the classroom." Los Angeles Times. Feb 20, 1995.

• Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. Second Edition. 200. Routledge.

• Jamieson, Robert. "Jar Wars Phantom Menace Has Launched a Heated Debate: Is this a cute critter in a kids' move, or a bumbling, shuffling stereotype." Seattle Post-Intelligencer. June 7, 1999.

• Neary, Lynn. Racism on the Silver Screen. National Public Radio. September 6, 2001.

• Newitz, Annalee. "Whites on Film." Cineaste, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2000): 46-48.

• Ramsey, Campbell. Working in the background: Tom Chapman rings down the curtain on 55 years in Movies, TV, and on Broadway in roles as an 'extra." Orlando Sentinel. June 14, 2005.

• Russell, Michael. "University of Arizona Graduate Participates in Humanitarian Mission." Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS). July 12, 2011.

• Tantibanchachai, Chanapa and Hughes, Carol. "ASU research helps impact in US anti-terrorist program." ASU News - Online. February 15, 2011.

• Walker, Dave. "Hope for a better, prejudice-free future was the appeal of 'Star Trek'" The Times-Picayune. May 10, 2009.

• Wester, Shanna. "Does ASU have a porn problem?" The State Press. November 12, 2010.

Persondata
Name	Bernardi, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	June 16, 1964
Place of birth	San Juan, Puerto Rico
Date of death
Place of death