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Photo of Gregory Flaxman

Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Ph.D. (2003), University of Pennsylvania, Comparative Literature
M.A. (1997), University of Iowa, Film Studies (Communications)
M.A. (1995), University of Minnesota, English
B.A. (1991), University of Michigan, English

Bio

Gregory Flaxman is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Director of Global Cinema Studies (GCS) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Also an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Studies, he is a founding member of Global Cinema Studies as well as an affiliate of the Department of American Studies, the Program in Cultural Studies, and Jewish Studies. Flaxman’s research broadly concerns the relationship between aesthetics and philosophy (especially with respect to film, literature, and fine art). The author of Gilles Deleuze and the Fabulation of Philosophy (Minnesota, 2011) and the editor of The Brain is the Screen (Minnesota, 2000), he is currently finishing two books–one on Robert Bresson and the other on American biopolitics.

To read more, visit my website

Publications:

  • “Out of Control: From Political Economy to Political Ecology.” Posthuman Ecologies: Complexity and Process after Deleuze. Ed. Rosi Braidotti and Simone Bignall. London, UK: Rowan and Littlefield, 2019. 205-222.
  • “The Physician of Cinema: Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life.” Special Issue: “Terrence Malick.” Ed. Ted Geier. New Review of Film and Television Studies 17.1 (2019): 81-98.
  • “Perspective, cadre, philosophie: la peinture d’après Deleuze” in Gilles Deleuze, ed. Anne Sauvagnargues, Anne Querrien, and Arnauld Villani (Paris: Classiques Gernier/Editions Hermann, 2019).
  • “Cinema in the Age of Control.” Control Culture: Foucault and Deleuze after Discipline. Ed. Frida Beckman. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2018, 121-140.
  • “This is Your Brain on Cinema: Antonin Artaud.” Film as Philosophy. Ed. Bernd Herzogenrath. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016. 66-89.
  • “Once More, with Feeling: Cinesthesia and Ethics.” Special Issue: “Cinematic Thinking: Film an/as Ethics.” Ed. Robert Sinnerbrink and Lisa Trahair. SubStance 45.3 (2016): 174-189.
  • “Out of Field: The Future of Film Studies.” Special Issue: “Belief in Cinema.” Ed. Lisa Trahair and Lisabeth During. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 17.4  (2012): 119-137.
  • Gilles Deleuze and the Fabulation of Philosophy: Powers of the False (University of Minnesota Press 2011; 432 pages).

Teaching Awards

  • 2011  UNC Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring Award for Post-Baccalaureate Study
  • 2010   Association of Graduate Students, Award for Dissertation Direction
  • 2008  UNC Undergraduate Teaching Award (SUTASA)
  • 2007  Association of Graduate English Students, Mentoring Award
  • 1999-2000  University of Pennsylvania, Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching
  • 1999-2000  Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students

Awards

  • 2015-2016 Rice University Humanities Research Center Faculty Fellowship
  • 2014-2018 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship
  • 2013 Program in Jewish Studies, Travel Grant (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2010-2013 Australian Research Council Grant for “Film and Philosophy” (with Lisa Trahair and Robert Sinnerbrink)
  • 2012 Program in Jewish Studies, Travel Grant (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2009 University Research Council Subvention Grant (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2008-2010 Grant for Interdisciplinary Initiatives, Critical Speakers Series (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2008-2009 John Hope Franklin Foundation Fellowship (Duke University)
  • 2007 Chapman Teaching Fellowship, Institute of Arts and Humanities (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2007 Center for European Studies Faculty/Student Research Award (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2007 University Research Council, Junior Faculty Development Award (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2007 Small Grant Award (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2006 Spray-Randleigh Fellowship (UNC-Chapel Hill)
  • 2001-2002 Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award (Paris, France)

Courses Taught:

Graduate Courses

  • ENGL 891       Liberalism and Neoliberalism
  • ENGL 891       Transcendence and Immanence
  • ENGL 891       The Philosophy of Comedy
  • ENGL 891       On Truth and Lying
  • ENGL 862       Utopianism (co-taught with Prof. Richard Langston)
  • ENGL 680       The Ecology of Images
  • ENGL 680       Cinema and Painting
  • EENGL 735     Proseminar on Postcolonial Literature
  • ENGL 662       Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis
  • CMPL 490       American Comedy, American Democracy, American Cinema

Undergraduate Courses

  • ENGL 580       Introduction to Film Theory
  • CMPL 390       Film and Nature
  • ENGL 390       Film and Literature of the American West
  • ENGL 380       Conspiracy
  • ENGL 344       American Literature 1860-1900
  • ENGL 251       Introduction to Cultural Studies
  • CMPL 143       Introduction to Visual Culture
  • ENGL 142       Film Analysis
  • CMPL 131       Introduction to Comparative Literature (“The Baroque”)
  • CMPL 131       The Baroque and the Neo-Baroque