Bill Nichols (Ph.D., UCLA) is Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University. A leading (and founding) figure in the film studies community, Nichols is the editor of the seminal anthologies, Movies and Methods, Volumes 1 & 2 (1976; 1985) and the leading textbook in documentary film, Introduction to Documentary (2001). His other books include Ideology and the Image (1981), Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991), Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (1995), and Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde (ed., 2001).