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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