Jeffrey Sconce is a professor and cultural historian of media and film.
He is a professor in the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University.
Early life and education
Sconce has a B.A., B.S., and M.A. from the University of Texas, Austin, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Career
He is the author of ''The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity,'' published by Duke University Press in 2019, and ''Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television'', published by Duke University Press in 2000. Chapters from ''Haunted Media'' have been translated into French and German. He is also the editor of ''Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Financing,'' published by Duke University Press in 2007.
As a media historian, Sconce's work concentrates primarily on the occult, supernatural, and psychotic accounts of electronic media technologies.
His 1995 article, "Trashing the Academy: Taste, Excess and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style," introduced the concept of
paracinema
Paracinema is an academic term to refer to a wide variety of film genres out of the mainstream, bearing the same relationship to 'legitimate' film as paraliterature like comic books and pulp fiction bears to literature.
Definition
In terms of ta ...
, meaning an interest in low, tasteless and otherwise disreputable forms of cinema.
"Trashing the Academy" has been reprinted in several anthologies on cult film.
His 2002 article, "Irony, Nihilism, and the New American 'Smart' Cinema," introduced the concept of "smart cinema" to describe the stylistic and thematic interests of American independent filmmakers such as
Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson (born June 26, 1970), also known by his initials PTA, is an American filmmaker. Often described as one of the most preeminent writer-directors of his generation, List of awards and nominations received by Paul Thomas Anders ...
,
Todd Solondz
Todd Solondz (; born October 15, 1959) is an American filmmaker and playwright known for his style of dark, socially conscious satire. Solondz's work has received critical acclaim for its commentary on the "dark underbelly of middle class Americ ...
,
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ''In the Company of Men'' (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Film Fest ...
, and
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender ...
.
Sconce has also written exhibition catalog essays for several contemporary visual artists, including
Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler (born 1957) is an American multimedia and installation artist married to Jacqueline Humphries. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, in 1979. His art covers a range of med ...
,
Mike Kelley, Joshua Bonnetta, and Romeo Grünfelder.
Awards
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2020-2021
Selected works
*''The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity,'' Duke University Press (2019)
*"When Worlds Collide," ''Exploded Fortress of Solitude,'' Gagosian/Rizzoli (2012)
*''Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Financing,'' Duke University Press (2007)
*“What If? Charting Television’s New Textual Boundaries.” ''Television After TV,'' Lynn Spigel and Jan Olssen, editors. Duke University Press, 2004.
*“Irony, Nihilism, and the New American ‘Smart’ Cinema.” Screen 43:4 (2002).
*''Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television,'' Duke University Press, 2000.
*"'Trashing' the academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style." Screen Volume 36, Number 4 (1995).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sconce, Jeffrey
American mass media scholars
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people