Many of Mitchell’s students say he is extremely approachable and eager to discuss film and pop culture. Mitchell is known for making himself available for conversation both after class and during his office hours in the Carpenter Center cafe.

In fact, Akpan says that he saw another student bring a screenplay he had written, and asked Mitchell after class if the critic could read it and give him comments. Mitchell, he says, readily agreed.

Mitchell also appears to be going out of his way to attend undergraduate events. Last month, he moderated the question-and-answer with DJ Spooky, following the artist’s Sanders Theatre performance of “Rebirth of a Nation.”

And a few days later, he attended a Mather House showing of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, which Akpan organized. Afterwards, Mitchell led a discussion on the movie’s handling of racial stereotypes.

THE ELVIS STRIKES BACK?

In our recent talk, Mitchell made light of the praise he sometimes receives.

“So, does that moss on your hunchback grow naturally?,” he mimicked with a grin. “Do you need a special shoe for that cloven foot?”

While Gawker and Gadfly have snickered about Mitchell’s class, Mitchell speaks in glowing terms of his Harvard teaching experience. It forced him, he says, to consider the big picture of what he does, to ask himself “what I really cared about.”

 If the VES department asks him to, Mitchell says that he would very much like to return, a sentiment that Connor is guardedly optimistic about.

“His position is...allocated to the department to compensate for the loss of the course that might ordinarily be taught by the HFA Curator,” Connor writes in an e-mail. “Since that search is ongoing, I cannot comment on the department’s future plans. I would be delighted to have him back.”

Either way, though, it doesn’t seem like Mitchell will be too upset—should his teaching career be interrupted, he’ll always have those two radio shows, his production consulting job, and a bevy of Hollywood connections to fall back on.

And who needs to worry about when you’ve got the style of a black, male, comic-book-fed Pauline Kael with a penchant for bad ’80s music videos, and a better wardrobe than the love-child of Dorian Grey and Lester Bowie?

---Staff writer Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mohammed@fas.harvard.edu.