Bio

A writer and documentary filmmaker, Jodie Childers is interested in 20th-century transnational American studies, Icelandic literature, cultural McCarthyism and Cold War political rhetoric. Her creative work explores the psychic and environmental effects of extractivism and deindustrialization on Rust Belt Appalachia. She holds a PhD in English with a concentration in American studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She also received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College and an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh.

Recent Publications

“‘Bitter Enemy’ of the State: The Political and Literary Reception of Halldór Laxness.” Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2024, pp. 65–90

“Hard Water: An Autoethnography of American Rust,” The AutoEthnographer, 2024. (three poems and artist’s memo)

“Returning to God’s Country: Louis Malle’s Encounter with the Midwest.” Middle West Review, Vol. 10, no. 2, 2024, pp. 253 –58.

“‘Claims to be an author’: Halldór Laxness’s American Years.” Resources for American Literary Study, vol. 44, 2023, pp. 184–211.

“Mapping Radical Poetic Geographies: The Sonnets of Frank X Walker and Maggie Anderson,” Revised and Reprinted in The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays. Edited by Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith. U of Iowa P, 2023, pp. 229–234.

“California Treason: Halldór Laxness and Upton Sinclair.” Comparative American Studies, vol. 19, 2022, pp. 136–151.

“Smelter,” Slippery Elm, 2022, pp. 30–31. (Finalist for Competition)

“Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson Before HUAC.” Transatlantica. Revue d’études américaines. 2021, no. 2, pp. 1–23.

Recent Film Work

Down by the Riverside (84 min)

Roles: Director, Cinematographer, Executive Producer An intimate portrait of the legendary folk musician Pete Seeger and the participatory grassroots community he anchored in the Hudson Valley for over forty years, Down by the Riverside examines how an unconventional campaign to save the polluted Hudson River prompted a green revolution.

World Premiere

Woodstock Film Festival, (2023)

Selected Screenings

Athens International Film & Video Festival (official selection, 2024) 

Berkshire International Film Festival (official selection, 2024) 

Catalina Film Festival (official selection; screened in online exhibition, 2024)

Selected Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

Course Enrichment Grant, University of Virginia Library, 2025

Alternative Assignments, Faculty Learning Community Grant, University of Virginia, 2025

Finalist, Tennessee Williams Festival Fiction Contest, 2024.

Vassar College Archives & Special Collections Research Grant, 2024.

Digital Humanities Summer Institute Scholarship, Podcasting from Scratch, 2024.

NEH Summer Seminar Grant Recipient, Rust Belt Humanities Lab, 2023.

Finalist, Slippery Elm Poetry Contest, 2022.

Longlist, Terry J. Cox Award for Poetry, 2021.

The Leifur Eiríksson Foundation Fellowship, 2019.
 

Recent Conference Presentations

“Writing Through the Lens: Documentary Filmmaking and Non-fiction Storytelling,” Association of Writing and Writing Programs Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 2026. (Accepted, forthcoming)

“Pete Seeger: A Complete Unknown.” World of Dylan Conference, University of Tulsa, Tulsa Oklahoma, 2025.

“The Politics of Aspiration: The Second Red Scare and the (un)American Dream,” The Nordic Association for American Studies Conference, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, 2025.

“Cultivating the Cinematic Imagination: Storyboarding the Writing Classroom.” MLA Innovation Room, Poster Presentation, New Orleans, January 2025.

“Making Citation Visible: Merging and Emerging Visions,” Roundtable. MLA, New Orleans, January 2025.

“‘Comrades and Co-operators’: The Politics of Community in American Left-Wing Magazines, 1911–1929.” The Politics and Poetics of Community Conference, Sorbonne University / Paris Nanterre University, 2024.

“Experiments in Nonsense: AI in the Writing Classroom.” Writing, Thinking, and Learning with AI: Exploring Relationships of Rhetoric and Artificial Intelligence Conference, SUNY Writing Council, 2023.

“The New McCarthyism(s)?” Nordic Association for American Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden, 2023.

“‘Unfriendly Artists Before HUAC,” Dissent in Transatlantic Perspective, Charles University, Prague, The Czech Republic, 2022.
 

Selected Media Coverage

Interview. “AIFVF hosts Ohio premiere of ‘Down by the Riverside’ tomorrow.” WOUB Public Media. 11 April 2024.

Interview. “‘Down by the Riverside’ spotlights Pete Seeger, Hudson River Cleanup. Lansing State Journal. 10 April 2024.

“Documentary about folk singer Seeger to debut at Athens Film Festival.” The Athens News. 6 April 2024.

Interview. Folk with Matt Watroba. WKAR Public Media, 31 March 2024.

Interview. Live Radio Interview WKZE. 29 September 2023.

Radio Interview. WFUV. Sunday Supper. 24 September 2023.

Interview. “Woodstock Film Festival Spotlights Movies, Documentaries Shot in Mid-Hudson Valley.” Kingston Daily Freeman. 23 September 2023.

“The U.S. and NATO in the Icelandic Literary.” The Academic Minute. NPR. WAMC Northeast Public Radio, 15 September 2023.

“Woodstock Film Festival Unveils 2023 Slate. Variety Magazine, 29 August 2023. (Mention)