Anna McCarthy

Anna McCarthy is Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies at the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She is a leading scholar in media studies and media theory, with significant contributions to the understanding of television, public space, and cultural governance.

Her education includes a BA from Wesleyan University and MA and PhD from Northwestern University.

Her research focuses on the cultural, political, and commercial dimensions of media, particularly television and video in public spaces. Her influential works include Ambient Television (2001), which examines video screens in public environments, and The Citizen Machine (2010), which explores how postwar institutions used television for governance. She co-edited MediaSpace (2004), a key anthology on the spatial logics of media. Her current research investigates Irish film and television in the context of Ireland's shift from a theocratic to a secular society.

She served for eight years as Coeditor of Social Text and currently edits Social Text Online, contributing significantly to critical theory and cultural studies discourse.

Anna McCarthy advises PhD students in the Cinema Studies program, including Lauren I Treihaft, whose research examines temporality in contemporary media. While no grants are explicitly mentioned, her editorial leadership and long-term academic appointments suggest sustained research engagement.

She is also a published fiction writer, with stories appearing in Cagibi, Pacifica Literary Review, Litro, Short Fiction, and The London Reader, reflecting an interdisciplinary creative practice.