Directory Profile
Akira Mizuta Lippit, Ph.D.
University Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, Comparative Literature, and East Asian Languages and Cultures
T.C. Wang Family Endowed Chair in Cinematic Arts and Vice Dean of Faculty, School of Cinematic Arts
Research areas: World Film and Literature, Critical Theory, Japanese Cinema and Culture, Experimental Film, Visual Studies
Affiliated Divisions:
Division of Cinema & Media Studies
Email: alippit@cinema.usc.edu
Work Phone: 213.740.6919
Akira Mizuta Lippit is Vice Dean of Faculty in the School of Cinematic Arts, and Professor in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies. He is also Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Cultures in the USC Dornsife College. His interests are in world cinemas, critical theory, Japanese film and culture, experimental film and video, and visual studies. Lippit’s published work reflects these areas and includes four books, Ex-Cinema: From a Theory of Experimental Film and Video (2012); Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) (2005); Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife (2000); and his most recent book, Cinema without Reflection: Jacques Derrida's Echopoiesis and Narcissism Adrift (2016). At present, Lippit is completing a book on contemporary Japanese cinema, which explores the physical and metaphysical dimensions of the "world," and another on David Lynch’s baroque alphabetics.
His work appears widely in journals and anthologies, and has been translated into Croatian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, and Spanish. He is past recipient of the Fulbright-Hays, Japan Foundation, and Academy of Korean Studies research awards.
At USC, Lippit holds the TC Wang Family Endowed Chair in Cinematic Arts. He received the a USC Mentoring Award (Faculty) in 2016, and in 2019, the USC Dornsife College Albert S. Raubenheimer Award for distinguished research and teaching In 2023, Lippit was named University Professor.
Lippit is active on the board of various academic journals and books series, and is deeply engaged with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Visual History Project.
RECENT ARTICLES:
Cinema without Reflection: Jacques Derrida's Echopoiesis and Narcissism Adrift (University of Minnesota Press, Forerunners, 2016)
Ex-Cinema: From a Theory of Experimental Film and Video (University of California Press, 2012)
Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) (University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
Electric Animal: Toward a Rhetoric of Wildlife (University of Minnesota Press, 2000)
David Lynch’s Anagrams and Missing Letters (in progress)
Japanese Cinema Outside, Elsewhere, In the World (in progress)
