Mal Ahern

Mal Ahern's picture

Education History

BA (with honors), The University of Chicago, 2004
MA, City University of New York Graduate Center, 2011

Research Interests

Media archeology; history of technology; aesthetic theory; experimental cinema; feminist theory

Biography

I am a PhD candidate in History of Art and the program in Film and Media Studies. Before coming to Yale, I was the collection registrar at Museum of the Moving Image, where I cared for and documented a diverse collection of media-historical artifacts.

In my research, I explore the tensions between visual signification, abstraction, and image-making technologies. My dissertation proposes a new vocabulary for describing the relationship between media technology and aesthetic forms in the North American avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s.

In Spring 2014, I developed and co-taught an undergraduate course in Media Archeology with my advisor, Francesco Casetti. Other fields of interest include feminist theory, systems theory, and philosophical aesthetics. I also have a non-professional interest in ghost towns of the old West, as pictured at left.