Peter Alilunas
Biography
Peter Alilunas is a scholar and adult film historian with particular interest in technology and regulation. He is currently the Associate Department Head of Cinema Studies. He received the University of Oregon Ersted Award for Specialized Pedagogy in 2017.
Education
BA, English, University of Oregon, 2006
MA, Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas at Austin, 2008
PhD, Screen Arts & Cultures, University of Michigan, 2013
Statement
How, when, and where adult media has been made, played, and regulated is of particular interest to me, and the goal of my work is to normalize its study like any other form of media. My book Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video (2016) explores the history of adult video in North America and argues that it is a key part of the broader home video revolution in the 1970s and 1980s that changed how we understand media and culture. I am currently working on Pron 1.0, a new book that will trace the pre-history of adult material online, leading to the ways in which we understand the internet today. I am also interested in censorship, media regulation, exhibition and movie theaters, and film and media histories of all kinds.
Publications
The Handbook of Adult Film and Media. Co-editor with Patrick Keilty and Darshana Mini. Intellect Press. Coming in 2025.
Screening Adult Cinema. Co-editor with Desirae Embree and Finley Freibert. Routledge. Coming in 2025.
ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay. Co-editor with Whitney Strub. Edinburgh University Press, 2023
Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video. University of California Press, 2016.
“Going Up the Country: Adult Film History in Eugene, Oregon,” in Screening Sex: The Sex Scene. Darren Kerr and Donna Peberdy, eds. Edinburgh University Press. Coming in 2024.
“What We Must Be: AI and the Future of Porn Studies,” Porn Studies 11.1 (2024).
“Contemporaneous Mundanity and Regulation by Indifference,” Porn Studies 9.1 (2022).
“Playboy TV: Contradictions, Confusion, and Post-network Pornography,” in From Networks to Netflix: A Guide to Changing Channels. Derek Johnson, ed. Routledge (2022).
“The King is Dead, Long Live the Algorithm: MindGeek and the Digital Distribution of Adult Film,” in Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines. Courtney Brannon Donoghue, Paul McDonald, and Timothy Havens, eds. New York University Press (2021).
“Far Away, So Close: Technology, Spectatorship, and the Pasts and Futures of Pornography Studies,” Porn Studies 6.2 (2019).