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Northwestern School of Communication

Jeffrey Sconce

Professor
1920 Campus Drive
Room 207
Evanston, IL 60208
Jeffrey Sconce

Jeffrey Sconce is Professor in the Screen Cultures program and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2020-2021. His first book, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television (2000), examines the historical relation between electronic media and the occult. His 2019 book, The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity (2019), considers the historical role of electronic media in the history of psychotic ideation. He is also the editor of Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics (2007), an anthology of essays on various forms of “low” cinema. He has also written catalog essays for exhibitions by Joshua Bonnetta, Mike Kelley, and Tony Oursler.

Education

  • PhD Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • MA Radio/TV/Film, University of Texas-Austin
  • BS,Radio/TV/Film, University of Texas-Austin
  • BA English, University of Texas-Austin

Recent Publications

  • “The Golden Age of Badness,” Continuum, Volume 33, No. 6 (2020)
  • “Epilogue: Chipnapped,” Perspective: actualité en histoire de l’art, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (Sorbonne, 2020).
  • “The Biopic is an Affront to the Cinema,” Unwatchable, ed. by Nicholas Baer, Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Gunnar Iversen (Columbia University Press, 2018).
  • “The Ghostularity,” Communication + 1, Volume 4 (Spring 2015)
  • “Des médias hantés (entretien).” Hippocampe 11 (Summer 2014)
  • “Altered Sex: Satan, Acid, and the Erotic Threshold.” Sex Scenes: Media and the Sexual Revolution. Edited by Eric Schaefer. Duke University Press, 2014.
  • “Explosive Boredom.” ‘B’ for Bad: Aesthetics, Politics, and Cultural Value. Edited by Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis. SUNY Press, 2014.
  • Ultraghosts. Blurb (2014), “Media Mediums” exhibition, Galerie YGREC (Paris, France).
  • “La théorie du cinéma : que veut-elle de nous?” Théorème 15 (2012)
  • “When Worlds Collide,” Exploded Fortress of Solitude. New York: Gagosian Gallery/Rizzoli International, 2011.
  • Jeffrey Sconce. Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics. Duke University Press, 2007.
  • “Movies: A Century of Failure,” in Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics. Duke University Press, 2007.
  • “A Vacancy at the Paris Hilton.” Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. Ed. by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington. NYU Press, 2007.
  • “I’ve Got This Strange Feeling: A Discussion Between Mike Kelley and Jeffrey Sconce” in Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations, and Chit-Chat (1986-2004). Ed. by John C. Welchman. Dijon: Les Presses du reel, 2006.

Recent Awards and Honors

  • 2004-2005: Ameritech Chair in Communications
  • 2003-2004, 2004-2005: AGS Faculty Honor Roll

Courses

  • RTVF 230: Media Contexts
  • RTVF 402: Media and Irony
  • RTVF 322: The Horror Film
  • RTVF 410: Textual Analysis
  • RTVF 326: Exploitation Cinema
  • RTVF 326: Irrational Media
  • RTVF 422: Narration and Culture