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Professional Bio: Robert Spiegelman
Robert Spiegelman has been a freelance author and film producer, screenwriter, project-developer, multimedia advisor, research director and story consultant on a growing array of film, museum and multimedia projects. He addresses audiences across NY and Pennsylvania and is officially appointed (through 2009) to the highly-regarded Speakers List of the New York Council for the Humanities.
Dr. Spiegelman's passion is history. Over the last decade, he has been researching the watershed Sullivan-Clinton Campaign and parallel indigenous histories in Texas, Ireland and China. In 2004, he launched the award-winning website SullivanClinton.com; and developed Fields of Fire, a companion 11-scene interactive/animated mapset, now accessible at the Resource Centers of the Smithsonian Museum (NMAI) in Washington and Manhattan. Spiegelman also designs multimedia installations, such as "The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign, 1779-2004," which showed at the American Indian Community House in Manhattan.
His essay on the cultural meanings of Sullivan/Clinton won the 225th Anniversary contest sponsored by the Booth Library-Chemung Valley Historical Society. Several more are slated for publication in 2007. A forthcoming book, Fields of Fire: The Sullivan/Clinton Campaign: Then & Now will be published in 2007. Spiegelman has presented at many venues, including the Smithsonian NMAI (NYC), Rochester Museum & Science Center, Fenimore Art Museum, Syracuse University and the Onondaga Nation. He also addresses teacher workshops, maintains an educator's curriculum guide, and reaches highly-diverse audiences.
Film and multimedia projects under development include: Shattered Hearths, a multifaceted, multimedia project on 19th century dispossession and its ongoing impact; Taiping, a 19th century drama of the struggle for love and personal integrity during China's Taiping Rebellion, history's second bloodiest war; Old Shanghai, a Chinatown-like drama of murder and love in a city on the brink of WWII; Due North, an indigenous woman's wrenching quest for identity amidst siren calls of crossover stardom; and Shanghai Reverie, a documentary on legendary old Shanghai.
Other texts in progress include: Staked Plains, a 19th century history of entitlement and dispossession, recounted through an eminent Victorian couple, whose traces and deeds reverberate today; Old Shanghai, a novel of the struggle for love during historical upheaval and political intrigue; To the Global Station: an analysis of the origins of globalization in the womb and aftermath of World War II; and Scarcity and Abundance, a study of how these entwined ideas impact American culture and social thought.
Dr. Spiegelman is producer-director for Up South, an in-depth look at race relations in the Hudson Valley, currently in development. He was research director and lead interviewer for the 6-part documentary, Muhammad Ali: The Whole Story, segments of which aired on TNT. (On this, he worked with Robert Lipsyte, senior sportswriter of the New York Times and Leon Gast, director of the Oscar-winning When We Were Kings; and interviewed figures like William F. Buckley, Jr., Paul Robeson, Jr. and numerous boxing greats and journalists.) Spiegelman has been a script and media advisor. He has developed epic-scale film projects on China's 20th century revolution, working with Oscar-winner Ron Bass (Rain Man); and Taiping, based on China's 19th century Taiping revolution, with Oscar-nominee Zachary Sklar (JFK). He is also a co-producer of two epics-in-progress:The Wounding, a work in-progress on the 18th century Euro-Indian wars in North America and Staked Plains/Shattered Hearths, an 19th century epic saga of love and revenge in the first Gilded Age.
Spiegelman's reviews and feature articles have appeared in venues like International Documentary, Chemung History Journal, CA Quarterly, Social Policy and The Guardian (US) and have sparked commentary in the Columbia Journalism Review. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the City University of New York, an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Queens College (CUNY).