Filmmakers

Charles Thompson, director of the undergraduate program at CDS, holds the faculty position of Lecturer in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Religion. He holds a Ph.D. in religion and culture from UNC-Chapel Hill, with concentrations in cultural studies and Latin American studies. His particular interests in documentary work fall into the categories of oral history, ethnography, filmmaking, and community activism. A former farmer, he remains immersed in agricultural issues and the laborers within our food system. He has written about farmworkers, and he is an advisory board member of Student Action with Farmworkers. He is the author or editor of five books. His latest book is Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World. He is also author of The Old German Baptist Brethren: Faith, Farming, and Change in the Virginia Blue Ridge, and editor, with Melinda Wiggins, of The Human Cost of Food: Farmworker Lives, Labor, and Advocacy. Thompson is the producer/director of three documentary films, including The Guestworker and We Shall Not Be Moved. His latest documentary film is on Guatemalan day laborers in the U.S., and is entitled Brother Towns/Pueblos Hermanos.