About the Blog
I write about visual art and culture. It sweeps from contemporary gallery art to rather old American films, always with an eye to place. The place can be Kentucky (my home), the contingent space of globalization, or just the place that occurs when a couple of people sit down for a cup of tea.
While I trained in English and American literature, I cut my critical teeth writing about comics for The Comics Journal, the oldest such magazine of its kind. Since 2002, I have written a semi-regular column, “Lost in Translation,” about Japanese manga yet to find its way to English. Around the same time, I began teaching film history and production. I studied film history in my M.A. program; I studied production at the Maine Media Workshops. Most of all, I have learned by doing.
This broad background, and a healthy interest in agriculture & architecture, informs my critical practice. I won’t flatter myself, however, that I no longer need to practice to stay in shape. So as best I can, I will update this blog twice weekly with substantial content. Some of the material has appeared before, in print; some is new. Hopefully after a while some connections will come to light, so that the far-off bits will seem closer, and everything will tie together.
For bio, CV and contact information,
see the About page of my main site.
