<nettime> RIP Mark Poster

[geert lovink <g.w.lovink@uva.nl>]

Mark Poster, 1941-2012

Mark Poster, Emeritus Professor of History and Film & Media Studies at  
UC Irvine, passed away in the hospital earlier this morning. Mark  
Poster was a vital member of the School of Humanities, and for decades  
one of its most widely read and cited researchers. He made crucial  
contributions to two different departments, History and Film & Media  
Studies, and played a central role in UCI's emergence as a leading  
center for work in Critical Theory.

In the first part of his career, when his focus was on modern European  
intellectual history, his path-breaking publications included the  
influential book *Existential Marxism in Postwar France* (Princeton  
University Press 1975), a study of the intellectual world around Jean- 
Paul Sartre. When the theory boom hit the U.S., thanks in part to this  
book, he became a widely sought-after authority on French critical  
thought, especially the writing of Michel Foucault, whose work he  
helped introduce to American audiences. He played a crucial role in  
setting the History Department on its current course, as one of the  
first departments--if not the first department--in the discipline with  
a required graduate sequence in theory. In that sequence Mark taught a  
Foucault seminar that became legendary.

His investments in French intellectual history also positioned Mark  
Poster for crucial contributions to the Critical Theory Institute at  
UC Irvine, which he helped start as an informal reading group; by 1987  
it was established as a campus research institute. The distinction of  
Irvine, reflected in the CTI, the graduate emphasis, the Critical  
Theory Archive, and departmental strengths, still defines the special  
character of the School, and contributes to its international  
reputation for scholarly innovation. Hosting internationally known  
scholars, the Critical Theory Institute with its public seminars and  
Wellek lecture series soon became one of the global hotspots in the  
humanities.

In the second part of his career, Mark became a seminal theorist of  
media and technology. He was the founding chair of the Department of  
Film & Media Studies at UC Irvine. Together with Franco Tonelli and  
Eric Rentschler, he had helped shepherd the Film Emphasis of the early  
1980s to Program status by the end of that decade, and then to  
departmentalization by 2002. In the process he was pivotal in hiring  
and mentoring faculty who now serve the School's second largest major.

Mark Poster was a major figure in the rapid development of media  
studies and theory in the USA and internationally. While as an  
intellectual historian he could draw on Frankfurt School thought as  
well as on cybernetics, he was particularly interested in the  
potential of poststructuralism for media studies. From his  
translations of Baudrillard to his dissemination of Foucault, Poster  
played a highly influential role in the study of media culture,  
including television, databases, computing, and the Internet; he  
continued to offer crucial commentary on the relevance to technology  
and media of cultural theory, and his numerous articles and books have  
been translated into a number of different languages. Reflective of  
the breadth of his interests and expertise, Poster held courtesy  
appointments in the Department of Information and Computer Science and  
in the Department of Comparative Literature. First hired at UCI in  
1968, Poster had recently retired after 40 years of service to
the School and the Campus.

We will let you know as plans for a memorial event in the School  
develop. In the meantime, we extend our condolences to his family and  
to all those close to him.

Jim Steintrager, Interim Dean, School of Humanities

Peter Krapp, Chair, Department of Film & Media Studies

Jeff Wasserstrom, Chair, Department of History



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