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Ara Osterweil

 Ara Osterweil
Contact Information
Phone: 
514-398-4400 Ext. 00901
Email address: 
ara.osterweil [at] mcgill.ca
Address: 

Arts 205
McCall MacBain Arts Building
853 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC H3A 0G5
Canada

Group: 
Faculty Members
Position: 
Associate Professor; Director of World Cinema Minor Program
Stream: 
Cultural Studies
Specialization by geographical area: 
United States
Specialization by time period: 
20th-Century
Contemporary
Area(s): 
Aesthetics
Archives & Bibliography
Art
Critical Theory
Film & Television
Areas of interest: 

cinema and art of the postwar and contemporary period; world cinema; avant-garde art; experimental film and literature; abstraction; aesthetics; gender and sexuality; autofiction; American cinema; the 1960s.听听

Biography: 

I am a writer, painter, and scholar of 20th-21st century film and art. I am also an art and film critic who believes in the communicative power of public writing, as can be gleaned from my regular contributions to Artforum and other publications. Although I consider myself as much an artist as an academic, I was trained in the history and theory of cinema, critical theory, and American literature. I find it impossible to consider aesthetics without also considering their political implications. It should thus come as no surprise that I favor politically radical and formally experimental aesthetics over mainstream culture. Some of the central questions that animate my research are: What are the politics of form in this artwork? How do these politics inform the work鈥檚 meaning and mode of address? And鈥攕ince I often write in the first person鈥攈ow does my own individual investment in work dynamize or complicate my understanding of it? In addition to writing extensively about avant-garde film, I also write about queer sexuality, gender, and motherhood in cinematic and artistic representations of the postwar period.听听

I am currently completing two book projects, both of which I have grappled with for nearly a decade. The first, The Pedophilic Imagination: A History of American Cinema, is a revisionary account that foregrounds the integral role that representations of intergenerational and interracial intimacy have played in the development of American cinema. My other book, an experimental memoir entitled Between Her Body and the Stain, is a love letter to my dead mother that tries to come to terms with the contradictions of grief, desire, caretaking, and creativity.听

听听

Degree(s): 

Ph.D., Rhetoric (University of California, Berkeley)听
M.A., Cinema Studies (New York University, Tisch School of the Arts)
B.A. summa cum laude, English & Philosophy (New York University)

Selected publications: 

Books

The Pedophilic Imagination: A History of American Film (Forthcoming, Duke University Press)

(University of Manchester, 2014)

Articles and Chapters

Artforum, Summer 2021.听

鈥淚nvasion of the Child Snatchers: Dramas of Pedophilic Seduction in New Queer Cinema,鈥 The Oxford Guide to Queer Cinema, ed. Ronald Gregg and Amy Villarejo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.听

鈥淭he Last Word: Dorothy Dean in Andy Warhol鈥檚 My Hustler,鈥 Art Journal, December 2019.听

鈥淎merica Year Zero: Kenneth Anger鈥檚 Fireworks,鈥 Artforum, January, 2017: 190-197.听

Artforum, May 2017.听

Artforum, Summer, 2016: 320-329.听

鈥淥n (and Off) the Couch,鈥 Warhol in Ten Takes, ed. Glyn Davis and Gary Needham. British Film Institute, 2013; 46-65.听

Public Scholarship, Creative Nonfiction, and Public Talks

Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2017.听听

in Maake magazine, Issue 14, 2022.听

鈥淚鈥檓 No More Your Mother Than鈥: Painting, Writing, Motherhood,鈥 Border Crossings, Issue 158. January, 2022.听

University of Toronto, Centre for Ethics, Toronto, Canada.听

Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Berlin, Germany.

Awards, honours, and fellowships: 
  • Kraszna Krausz Book Award: Best Moving Book Award of 2022 (UK鈥檚 Leading Prize) for The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne: 1963-1965, (ed. John Handhardt. Yale University Press, 2021.)听听
  • SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2021-2017听
  • Louis Dudek Award for Excellence in Teaching, English Department, 看片视频 University, 2013听
  • Andy Warhol Foundation, Creative Capital, 2011, 2016听
Graduate supervision: 

I would welcome expressions of interest from graduate students interested in the history, aesthetics, and politics of American and world cinema; postwar and contemporary art; avant-garde and experimental aesthetics; as well as autofiction and auto-theory. I also would welcome expressions of interest from graduate students interested in pursuing the creative option of the MA program.听

Taught previously at: 

Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania, U.S.
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.听

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