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headshot of Andrea Gyenge

Andrea Gyenge

Assistant Professor

Cinema
CW B49

Background

Andrea Gyenge is a scholar of the critical humanities. Her research explores orality and the mouth in continental philosophy, critical theory and film culture. This research has brought her work into contact with the field of sound studies, which shapes the critical reception of the body, especially in relation to aesthetics and the moving image.

She is currently working on two book projects. "Elastics of the Film Mouth" theorizes the ontological and material traffic between the mouth and the image in film aesthetics. Her second project, The Life-Image: An Essay in Biopolitical Philosophy, is a collaboration with Cesare Casarino on queer cinemas in the time of AIDS.

Her essays on the history of philosophy have appeared in Angelaki, New German Critique, Free Associations and Cultural Critique. She is also the co-author of a new "Afterword" (with John Paul Ricco) in Jean-Luc Nancy's posthumously published Corpus III, which explores Nancy's commitment to a philosophy of the mouth.

She received her PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota (2018) and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto—Mississauga (2021). She has also taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and, most recently, at Wellesley College.

She welcomes inquiries from undergraduates and prospective MFA students about the Cinema Department and her courses.

Select publications

  • “Fabula, Bucca, Humanitas.” In Understanding Nancy, Understanding Modernism. Edited by Cosmin Toma. Bloomsbury Press, January 2023
  • “Afterword” (with John Paul Ricco). In Corpus III. By Jean-Luc Nancy. Fordham University Press. December 2022
  • “Elastics of the Film Mouth.” In Faces on Screen: New Approaches. Edited by Alice Maurice. Edinburgh University Press, June 2022
  • “Laocoön’s Scream or Lessing Redux.” New German Critique, no. 142, February 2021

Education

  • PhD, Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society, University of Minnesota (2018)
  • BA Honors, Cultural Studies and Women’s Studies, Trent University (2007)

Research Interests

  • Film Aesthetics
  • Critical Theory and Continental Philosophy
  • Theories of the Body (especially the mouth and orality)
  • Sound Studies
  • Queer Cinema and Media

Teaching Interests

  • History and Theory of the Moving Image
  • Critical Theory
  • Queer Aesthetics
  • Popular Media and Mass Culture