He received his M.A. from Northwestern University in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994, both in radio/television/film. He is the author of Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History up to World War II. His present project, which explores the response of the American film industry to the growing public awareness of the Holocaust, received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2002.