His first monograph, Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), introduced the idea of the contemporary French film industry as an ecosystem, considering how it intersects with le jeune cinéma français, first-time directors, cinéma du corps (a more materials-based interrogation of the New French Extremity), pop-art cinema, female authorship, cinephilia, and La Fémis.

[3] His second monograph, Irreversible (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), is a textual and formal analysis of Gaspar Noé's infamous 2002 rape and revenge film Irréversible.

[4] He has also published articles and co-edited (with Charlie Michael) a volume on French cinema, Directory of World Cinema: France (University of Chicago Press/Intellect, 2013),[5] exploring such topics as: Paule Delsol,[6] Marina de Van, Valérie Donzelli,[7] Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mia Hansen-Løve, Philippe Grandrieux, Claire Denis, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, La France, Jean Dujardin, Bruno Dumont, Water Lilies, Catherine Breillat, Marjane Satrapi, and Céline Sciamma.

[8] Palmer is founding co-editor-in-chief of the journal Film Matters—written and peer reviewed by undergraduate students—which has been profiled nationally by The Chronicle of Higher Education[9] and the podcast Aca-Media,[10] as well as various local publications.

[21][22] His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities[23] and the American Council of Learned Societies.