Alissa Wilkinson

Alissa Wilkinson teaches criticism, cultural theory, and cinema studies at King’s, as well as supervising senior projects. Since 2016, she is a staff writer at Vox.com, focusing on film. Before joining Vox, she was the chief film critic at Christianity Today and wrote on pop culture and art for a decade at Rolling Stone, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, Books & Culture, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Pacific Standard, Paste, and many other outlets. She was inducted into the New York Film Critics Circle in 2017.

Alissa was a ’17-18 writing fellow with the Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction initiative and the 2017 Visiting Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries in Sydney, Australia. As a journalist, she has interviewed dozens of prominent filmmakers and actors as well as covering the world’s most prestigious film festivals, including Sundance, Cannes, TIFF, True/False, and the New York Film Festival. She’s also been invited to be on the jury at festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, the Hamptons International Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and DOC NYC.

Alissa is co-author, with Dr. Robert Joustra, of How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith and Politics at the End of the World (Eerdmans, 2016). Her chapters on theology and the work of filmmakers Kryzstof Kieslowski, Kelly Reichardt, and Paul Thomas Anderson are published in scholarly volumes. Wilkinson has been a guest commentator on a host of radio and TV programs and podcasts, including PBS NewsHour; NPR’s Morning Edition, 1A, and On Point; BBC America’s Talking Movies; AMC’s James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction; WNYC’s The Takeaway; ABC’s Religion & Ethics and The Drum; Vox’s Today, Explained; Mars Hill Audio Journal; and many more.

Professor Wilkinson was a Wall Street business analyst, a technical writer, and a staff member at International Arts Movement (where she founded The Curator) before coming to King’s. She launched Fieldnotes at the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, which she edited through March 2013, and was associate editor and then co-editor of Comment, published by the Ontario-based think tank Cardus. Her research interests are in theology of contemporary literature, art, and popular culture; art and culture criticism; creative nonfiction filmmaking, and U.S. intellectual history, especially as it intersects with evangelicalism and art.

Professor Wilkinson and her husband, Tom, live in Brooklyn.

Time at King's: August 2009 to July 2023