faculty

Karen Pinkus

Professor of French and Italian and Comparative Literature

Contact Information
E-mail: pinkus@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-0104
Office: THH 153

 

Biographical Sketch

I was born in New York City and I have lived in New Jersey; Ithaca, New York; France; Italy; Chicago; and Hollywood.

My major fields are Italian and Comparative Literature. I have worked broadly in literary theory, cinema, visual theory, and cultural studies. Aside from Italian I also work with French, Latin, German, Spanish, and I am learning Swedish.

My most recent book, Alchemical Mercury: A Theory of Ambivalence is forthcoming from Stanford University Press.

Currently I'm reading:

1) the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. It's great Swedish noir and it makes me nostalgic for Stockholm.

2)L'alchimista degli strati by Carlo Sgorlon. I picked up this novel in Italy because it seemed to bring together my interests in alchemy and alternative fuels. So far I am very annoyed by the way these topics are framed by an apparent sense of arrogance and superiority in the narratorial voice, but I'll give it a chance just to see where it goes.

Education

  • A.B. College Scholar Interdisciplinary Honors Program, Cornell University
  • Ph.D. Comparative Literature, Italian Specialization, CUNY Graduate Center

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests

I am working on a new book project, tentatively titled Poetic Dwelling: The Humanities Confronts Climate Change. Perhaps we humanists are expected to stand on the sidelines while Technics and Policy battle over what is to be done. We are, perhaps, expected to arrive on the scene--always too late--to provide empathy for a dying planet. Yet if we follow the work of thinkers such as Heidegger, Stiegler, Agamben and others we learn that Technology is not something outside of the human, but is rather, intrinsic to the human. We then we begin to realize that the Humanities are crucial to the most basic thinking about what it might mean to "solve" the problems of greenhouse gas emissions. These are the terms around which my current research is revolving.

I recently a keynote address titled "The Risks of Sustainability" at the Literature, Art and Culture in an Age of Global Risk Conference at Cardiff University.

I'm also currently teaching a graduate seminar on Literature, Thought and Climate Change. Together with David Bottjer and Lawford Anderson (both of Earth Sciences), I am organizing a workshop/bus trip to explore Human Time/Geological time: Discrepancies and Adaptations. The event is under the auspices of the USC College Commons.

In addition, I am working on:

1)an essay, co-authored with Paolo Matteucci, on the Rome of Pasolini's Petrolio for Annali d'Italianistica.

2)a novel, in Italian, titled Parola del Giorno

3)an essay on Michelangelo Antonioni and the environment for a forthcoming collection on Antonioni, edited by John David Rhodes and Laura Rascaroli.

4)an essay, tentatively titled "Carbon Management: A Gift of Time" that explores questions of carbon sequestration, trading and capture in the context of literary theory around the debt, futurity and temporality.

Publications

Book
  • Pinkus, K. (2008). Alchemical Mercury: A Theory of Ambivalence. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Adinolfi, F. (2008). Mondo Exotica: Sounds, Visions, Obsessions of the Cocktail Generation (Francesco Adinolfi), Translator and Editor. (Karen Pinkus, editor and translator, Ed.). Duke University Press.
Book Chapter
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2007). “Chi l’ha vista? Reflections on the Caso Montesi”. (Vol. NA). New York: Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy/Palgrave.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2007). “$, Anomie, State of Exception”. (Vol. NA). Cambridge, UK: State of Exception/Cambridge University Press.
Journal Article
  • Pinkus, K. (2008). "Nothing From Nothing: Alchemy and the Economic Crisis". World Picture Journal.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2008). "On Climate, Cars and Literary Theory". Technology and Culture.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2006). "Hollywood Panorama". Places. A Journal of Environmental Design/University of California Press. Vol. 4 (December, 2006)
  • Pinkus, K. E., Giorgi, G. A. (2006). "Zones of Exception: Biopolitical Territories in the Neoliberal Era". Diacritics/Cornell University Press. Vol. NA
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2006). “Hermaphrodite Poetics”. Arcadia. International Journal of Comparative Literature/Walter de Gruyter. Vol. Band 41 (2006), pp. Heft 1.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2005). “11/9 & Iraq, musica per le orecchie del presidente”. Il Manifesto/Italian independent newspaper. Vol. September 11, pp. 2005, p. 6.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2005). “Head-Roc”. Il Manifesto/Italian independent newspaper. Vol. September 20, pp. 2005.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2005). “Mrs. Exotica”. Il Manifesto/Italian independent newspaper. Vol. March 19, pp. 2005, p. 11.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2005). “Morte analogica”. Il Manifesto/Italian independent newspaper. Vol. February 5, pp. 2005, p. 11.
  • Pinkus, K. E. (2007). “Dematerialize this!". Diacritics/Cornell University Press. Vol. NA
Other
  • Pinkus, K. E. Picturing Silence: Emblem, Language, Counter-Reformation Materiality, Michigan, 1996 .
  • Pinkus, K. E. The Montesi Scandal, The Death of Wilma Montesi and the Birth of the Paparazzi in Fellini's Rome, Chicago, 2003.
  • Pinkus, K. E. Bodily Regimes: Italian Advertising Under Fascism, Minnesota, 1995.

Honors and Awards

  • USC Provost's Future Fuels and Energy Grant, 2006-2007  
  • Borchard Foundation Faculty Fellowship, 2006  
  • USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Fellowship, 2005  
  • Scaglione Prize best book in Italian Studies (for Bodily Regimes), 1996  
  • Getty Grant in Art History and the Humanities, 1993-1994  
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