Bio: Christopher Vitale

Christopher Vitale is Associate Professor of Media Studies, and a founding member of The Graduate Program in Media Studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. For more, see the program website here.

Contact: chris962x@gmail.com, cvitale@pratt.edu

RESEARCH AREAS:

– Poststructuralism and Continental Philosophy (emphasis on Deleuze, Lacan, and Hegel); Networks and Complex Systems Studies; Film, Film Theory, and Visual Studies; Buddhist Philosophy/Practice and Asian Philosophies; Queer Studies and Issues of Race; Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice; Comparative Modernist Literary and Visual Cultures.

BOOK PUBLICATIONS:

– Networkologies: A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age – A Manifesto (Zer0 Books, 2014).

– The Networked Mind: Artificial Intelligence, “Soft-Computing,” and the Futures of Philosophy (in progress, est. 2016).

– Everything You “Know” About Buddhism is Wrong! A Deconstructive Introduction to Buddhism and Buddhist Studies (in progress, co-authored with Tyler Nguyen Phan, Univ. College London).

EDUCATION:

– Ph.D. – New York University, Comparative Literature, 2007. Dissertation Title: The Untimely Richard Bruce Nugent. Dissertation Advisor: Emily Apter, New York University.

– 2 years training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health (2004-2006), 1 Year Practicum as Staff Therapist (2005-2006).

– Complex Systems Summer Institute, Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico (2008).

– Kathmandu Nepal: Studied and Lectured at Ranjung Yeshe Institute for Buddhist Studies (Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, Summer 2013), Fieldwork with Buddhist Monks at Sakya International Buddhist Academy (Summer 2013, Summer 2014).

– Graduate work in UC Berkeley Department of Comparative Literature(2000-2001) and New York University Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (1998-2000).

– B.A. – Binghamton University, State University of New York, 1996. Dual B.A. in Philosophy (Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture Program, High Honors) and Comparative Literature.

Additional Education: Language Study in German and Russian, UC Berkeley; Language Study in German at Goethe Institut in Muenchen and Murnau, Germany; Language Study in Spanish at Ixchell Spanish Language School in Antigua, Guatemala, CLIC-IH in Sevilla, Spain, and IH Barcelona and Madrid, Spain; Program Assistant at NYU in Prague, Czech Republic.

TEACHING HISTORY:

At Pratt Institute:

– Spring 2016: Networks and Contemporary Culture; Mediologies II (Required Course for Media Studies Graduate Students, co-taught with Ethan Spigland); Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (co-taught with Ven. Choephel Gyatso, Sakya Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism)

– Fall 2015: Psychoanalysis and Film; Introduction to Asian Philosophies; Cutting Edge Cinema 1990-Present.

– Spring 2015: Cutting Edge Cinema 1990-Present; Intensive Film Theory; Intro to Indo-Tibetan Buddhism

– Fall 2014: Sabbatical

– Spring 2014: Mediologies II (Graduate Media Studies/Praxis, co-taught with Ethan Spigland; Intensive Film Theory for Cinema Studies Minors; Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy, History, and Practice.

– Fall 2013: Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy, History, and Practice; Media Studies Encounters; Deleuze and Cinema (cross-listed grad).

– Spring 2013: Introduction to Asian Philosophy and Religion;  Hegel and his Afterlives (co-taught with Lisbeth During), CritViz Intro.

– Fall 2012:  Deleuze and Cinema;  Audio/Visions – Sound Theory, Film Theory, and Experimental Practice (co-taught with Jason Hoffman);  CritViz Intro (repeats).

– Spring 2012:  Advanced Film Theory: Lacanian and Psychoanalytic Approaches;  Films of the 70’s: An Introduction to Postwar International Cinema, Part II;  Introduction to Literature, Film, and Theory for Critical/Visual Studies Majors, Part II.

– Fall 2011:  Bodies on Boundaries: Marginal Selves and Hybrid Lives;  Contemporary Experimental Narrative Cinema: 1980 to Present;  Introduction to Literature, Film, and Theory for Critical/Visual Studies Majors, Part I.

– Spring 2011:  Advanced Film Theory: Lacan and Deleuze;  Films of the 1960’s: An Introduction to Postwar International Cinema, Part I.

– Fall 2010:  Imaging Time: The Films of Federico Fellini and Andrei Tarkovsky;  Gaming, Simulation, and Play (cross-listed graduate course).

– Spring 2010:  Cinema and Time (cross-listed graduate course);  Modernism and Postmodernism (CritViz core course);  Film and Event: The Film Festival (CritViz project course).

– Fall 2009:  Space, Time, and Bodies;  Activism: History, Theory, Practice (co-taught with Francy Caprino).

– Spring 2009:  Thought, Mind, and Brain;  Semiotics in 4D: Narratives of the Outsider in Literature and Film (repeats most Spring semesters thereafter)

– Fall 2008:  The Documentary Image and its Limits in Photography and Film;  Bodies on Boundaries: Marginal Selves and Hybrid Lives.

– Spring 2008:  Theories of Networks;  The Virtual Window: Foundations of Visual Studies (CritViz core course for non-majors).

– Fall 2007:  Modernist Visual Cultures;  Reading Representations: Semiotics in 2-3D (repeats most Fall semesters thereafter).

– Spring 2007:  A Brief History of Sexuality: From Sexology to the Digital Age (2 sections);  Horror in Literature, Film, and Theory.

At Hunter College, City University of New York:

– Fall 2005-Fall 2006:  Literary and Cultural Theory: Genealogy, Culture, and Critique (taught for three semesters in a row).

At Pace University:

– Fall 2005:  Political Thought from Plato to Malcolm X

At New York University:

– Summer 2005:  A Brief History of Sexuality: From Sexology to the Digital Age

– Summer 2004:  The Erotics of the Gaze: Psychoanalysis and the Politics of Looking in Film and Visual Culture

– Spring 2003:  Queer Cultures: Queer Crossings, Queer Critique in Literature, Theory, and Film

– Spring 2002:  Queer Modernisms: Literature, Sexuality, and Culture, 1880-1940

(-1999, 2002: Beginner German, NYU Speaking Freely Non-Credit Language Program.)

At University of California, Berkeley:

– Fall 2000:  Monsters, Mayhem, and Madness in Literature and Film

– Spring 2000:  Literature and the Unconscious: Freudian, Literary, Avant-Garde, and Social Approaches

PRESENTATIONS, TALKS, AND PANELS:

– Neuropolitics: Facial Recognition, Kohonen Networks, and Distributed Representation, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Facebook’s ‘DeepFace,’ Pratt Institute Encounters Speakers Series, Pratt Institute, Sept. 2015.

– Panel Session Participant, “Theory/Praxis – What is Praxis?,” at Left Forum, May 2015, in New York, NY.

– New Author Events at Pratt Institute, April-May 2015: Reading from Networkologies at poetics@pratt2; Presentation on Networkologies at PolyGlossoPhilia/RiDE panel “Crossing/Lines”; and Presentation and Q&A session on Networkologies at dedicated PolyGlossoPhilia/RiDE Author event.

– Book Launch Party Talk – What are Networkologies?, at Unnameable Books, Brooklyn, NY, March 2015.

– Buddhism and Quantum Physics: A Perfect Fit?, Invited Lecture, Ranjung Yeshe Institute for Buddhist Studies, Centre for Buddhist Studies, Kathmandu University, Kathmandu, Nepal, July 2013.

– Virtual Emergences: The Radical Potentials of Late Mahayana and Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist Philosophy for an Age of Networks, Pratt Institute, May 2013.

– Intersectional Historiography and the Case of Richard Bruce Nugent, conference on Identity, Memory, and Experience, sponsored by Vanderbilt University, Pratt Institute, and Carlos III University of Madrid, at Pratt Institute, June 2011.

– The Concept of the Network Diagram, workshop on work-in-progress, Pratt Institute, May 2011.

– Ontology or Epistemology? Yes, Please! A Critique of Object-Oriented Ontology, Villlanova University Philosophy Dept. Annual Conference: The Return of Metaphysics, April 2011.

– Neo-Medievalism and the Techno-Image: Ranciere, Rotman, McLuhan, and Flusser, North Eastern Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Rutgers University, April 2011.

– Visual Pleasures and Bodily Cinema: Queer Spectatorship and Fem-Dom Internet Porn (Updated version), Pratt Institute Aesthetics and Politics Series, April 2010.

– Networkology/Mediology, Pratt Institute Academic Initiatives Committee Symposium on Media/Space, Pratt Institute, February, 2010.

– Visual Pleasures and Bodily Cinema: Queer Spectatorship and Fem-Dom Internet Porn, Man Enough – Colloquium on Masculinity, New York University, April 2009.

– A Meta-Discursive Approach to the Relation Between the Interdisiplinary Imperative and Contemporary Epistemologies of Knowledge (To the Skeptical Scientists), online contribution, Proceedings of Santa Fe Institute CSSS 2008, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

– Semiotics, Sign Systems, and the Mind, Santa Fe Institute Tutorial Series, June 2008.

– Network Economics and Value Theory: From Marx to Complexity, Santa Fe Institute Tutorial Series, June 2008.

– Organizer: panel entitled ‘Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Painting and Graphic Design,’ with Yasmin Hernandez, painter, and Robert Espinoza, Communications Director and Graphic Designer, Funders of Gay and Lesbian Initiatives, for the Critical and Visual Studies Colloquium Series, Pratt Institute, Nov. 2007.

– Discussant: Panel on Jonathan Beller’s “Kino-I, Kino-World,” at the Critical and Visual Studies Colloquium Series, Pratt Institute, Feb. 2007.

– Saussure on Soft-Serve, or, Why We Need to Move Beyond the Binary Opposition, SLAS Works in Progress Series, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 2006.

– Queering the Practice of the Letter: On the Language of the Oppressed, Cornell University LGBT Studies Colloquium, Spring 2005, and NYU Department of Comparative Literature Conference, Spring 2005.

– Queer Studies and Comparative Literature: Unstable Signifiers, Department of Comparative Literature Conference, New York University, 2003.

– The Queer Fantasmatic and the Reinscription of the Closet, Student Conference in Queer Popular Culture, New York University, Spring 2000.

– On Queer Theory: Negation and the Future Anterior, Annual Philosophy Conference, SUNY Stonybrook, Spring 2000.

– Mechanics of Ocularity in the Early Works of Georges Bataille, UC Berkeley Annual Symposium on Visual Culture, Fall 1999.

– Narratives of Pure Language in Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator,’ Annual Philosophy Conference, SUNY Stonybrook, Spring 1999.