Dana Stevens (critic)

{{distinguish|Dana Stevens (screenwriter)}}{{Primary sources|date=March 2025}}{{short description|American film critic (born 1966)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Dana Stevens

| image = Dana_Stevens,_film_critic.jpg

| caption = Stevens in 2022

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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1966|06|30}}

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Vassar College (AB)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)

| occupation = Film critic

| alias = Liz Penn

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| credits = Slate magazine, Culture Gabfest

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}}

Dana Shawn Stevens (born June 30, 1966){{citation needed|date = June 2020}} is an American film critic who writes for Slate.{{Cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/authors.dana_stevens.html|title=Dana Stevens|website=Slate Magazine|access-date=2017-11-11}} She is also a cohost of the magazine's weekly cultural podcast, the Culture Gabfest.{{Cite news|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/culturegabfest/2017/10/battle_of_the_sexes_tom_petty_and_john_mcphee.html|title=The Culture Gabfest "Too Good to Last" Edition|last1=Metcalf|first1=Stephen|date=2017-10-04|work=Slate|access-date=2017-11-12|last2=Stevens|first2=Dana|language=en-US|issn=1091-2339|last3=Turner|first3=Julia}} She is the author of a 2022 book about Buster Keaton and the 20th century titled Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century.{{Cite news|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/culturegabfest/2016/10/dana_stevens_process_of_writing_a_book_about_buster_keaton.html|title=Looking Back at Vaudeville's Buster Keaton|last1=Roth|first1=Gabriel|date=2016-10-13|work=Slate|access-date=2018-05-31|last2=Stevens|first2=Dana|language=en-US|issn=1091-2339}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Camera-Man/Dana-Stevens/9781501134197|title=Camera Man|date=2022-01-25|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1-5011-3419-7|language=en}}

Life and career

Stevens grew up in Scarsdale, New York;{{cite web |title=Liz Penn, Writer/TV Critic |url=http://gothamist.com/2004/06/25/liz_penn_writertv_critic.php |publisher=Gothamist |accessdate=June 20, 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100315063846/http://gothamist.com/2004/06/25/liz_penn_writertv_critic.php |archivedate=March 15, 2010 }} and San Antonio, Texas.{{cite web|title=Extract, film review podcast @3:00min|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2009/09/the_discreet_charm_of_the_american_bonehead.html|work=Spoiler Special Podcast|publisher=Slate.com|accessdate=29 March 2012|date=September 3, 2009}}{{cite web|last=Stevens|first=Dana|title=ladiesofboston @thehighsign is this u Dana from Boston?|url=https://twitter.com/thehighsign/status/181887116211523584|publisher=@thehighsign|work=Twitter.com|accessdate=28 March 2012|date=20 Mar 2012|quote=ladiesofboston: @thehighsign is this u Dana from Boston? Dana Stevens:@ladiesofboston Nope, wrong Dana. I'm from San Antonio, Texas.}} She graduated from Vassar College and attained a doctorate in comparative literature from UC Berkeley in 2001 with a dissertation on Fernando Pessoa: A Local Habitation and a Name: Heteronymy and Nationalism in the works of Fernando Pessoa.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

She joined Slate in mid-2003, writing the magazine's Surfergirl column on television and pop-culture.{{cite web|title=Who We Are |url=http://www.slate.com/id/117517/ |publisher=Slate |accessdate=June 20, 2011 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623064713/http://www.slate.com/id/117517/ |archivedate=June 23, 2011 |url-status=dead }} Before joining Slate she wrote under the pseudonym "Liz Penn" on her own (now-defunct) website/blog called the High Sign. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post Book World, Bookforum, and The Atlantic and has appeared on several occasions on Charlie Rose and The Brian Lehrer Show. She is a regular on Slate's Culture Gabfest.

Stevens has described herself as "an atheist raised in culturally Christian milieu".{{cite web|last=Stevens |first=Dana |title=Films of Atonement |url=http://www.jewcy.com/post/the_films_of_atonement |publisher=Jewcy |accessdate=June 21, 2011 |date=September 18, 2007}} She lives in Brooklyn, New York.