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Cinema Studies

Education

Ph.D., 1989; Cinema Studies, New York University Ph.D., 1980; Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook B.A., 1974; Queens College, City University of New York

Biography

I was born in January and my deity is Janus, the two-faced god: I live in two countries, speak two languages, teach in two departments (Cinema Studies and Performance Studies), have two PhDs (Philosophy and Cinema Studies), write theory and fiction, produce radiophonic works and marionette theater... I firmly believe that no single field of knowledge is sufficient for appreciating any given artwork, and thus have a firm belief in the merits of interdiscplinarity, such that my interests, scholarly and existential, range from feast and folly to films and fiction, puppets and performance to philosophy and phantasms.

Major Interests: Experimental Cinema, Radio, Theater, Sound Art; Psychopathology of Expression; Post-structural Narratology and Literal Theory; Theory of Landscape; Performative Writing.

Fellowships/Honors: Phi Betta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude (Queens College CUNY, 1974); Graduate Council Fellowship (SUNY Stony Brook, 1974-1977); Fulbright-Hays Fellowship (Paris, 1978-1979); First Prize, Society for Cinema Studies Essay Contenst (1988); Centre National du Livre (Paris) translation grant (1995); Etants Donnés Grant (1999) from the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts for the production of Theater of the Ears (a play for electronic marionette and taped voice).

Books Authored:

1. Iconology and Perversion  (Art & Text Publica­tions, 1988)
2. The Aesthetics of Excess  (State University of New York Press, 1989)
3. Miroirs de l'infini : Le jardin à la française et la métaphysique au XVII^e siècle  (Éditions du Seuil, 1992)
4. Shattered Forms: Art Brut, Phantasms, Modernism  (SUNY­, 1992)
5. Perverse Desire and the Ambiguous Icon  (SUNY, 1994)
6. Flamme et festin : Une poétique de la cuisine  (Éditions Java, 1994)
7. Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden and 17^th Century Metaphysics  (Princeton Architectural Press, 1995)
8. Phantasmic Radio  (Duke University Press, 1995)
9. Lieux et liens  (Éditions Lahumière, 1998)
10. Unnatural Horizons: Paradox and Contradiction in Landscape Architecture  (Princeton Architectural Press, 1998)
11. Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime (SUNY, 2002)
12. Breathless: Sound Recording, Disembodiment, and the Transformation of Lyrical Nostalgia (Wesleyan, 2002)
13. Comment cuisiner un phénix (Mercure de France, 2004)
14. The Wind and the Source: In the Shadow of Mont Ventoux (SUNY, 2005)
15. Autobiographie dans un chou farci (Mercure de France, 2006)

Books Edited or Co-Edited:

1. Phantasm and Simulacra  (Art & Text #18, 1985)
2. Art Brut: Madness and Mar­ginalia  (Art & Text #27, 1988)
3. Psychosis and Sexual Identity  (SUNY, 1988)
4. New Paradigms in Film Theory  (Art & Text #34, 1989)
5. Portraits From the Outside  (Parsons School of Design, 1990)
6. NON%*@#&?!SENSE  (Art+Text #37 and The Whitney Museum, 1990)
7. Sade and the Narrative of Transgression  (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
8. La Création radiophonique  (Java #12, 1994)
9. Voice Tears  (CD in conjunction with TDR #151, 1996)
10. The Theater of the Ears  (Sun & Moon Press, 1996)
11. Taste, Nostalgia  (Lusitania Press, 1997)
12. Versailles (Mercure de France, 1999) C 3 volumes
13. Experimental Sound and Radio (MIT, 2001)
14. French Food (Routledge, 2001)
15. Jardins (Mercure de France, 2002) C 2 volumes
16. La Gastronomie au XIX^e siècle (Mercure de France, 2003) C 3 volumes
17. Poupées (Gallimard / Haute Enfance Albums, 2004)
18. La Gastronomie (Critique #685-686, 2004)
19. Acte I. Pour un nouveau musée (Éditions de la Martinière, 2004)