Akira Mizuta Lippit

Akira Mizuta Lippit is a University Professor and T.C. Wang Family Endowed Chair in Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He holds joint appointments in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences (Departments of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Cultures) and the School of Cinematic Arts (Bryan Singer Division of Cinema and Media Studies). As Vice Dean of Faculty in the School of Cinematic Arts, he oversees academic programs and faculty development.

His research focuses on world cinemas, critical theory, Japanese film and culture, experimental film/video, and visual studies. Key areas include history and theory of cinema, postwar Japanese cultural representation (especially atomic imagery), spectral aesthetics, animal studies, and posthumanist frameworks. His seminal works explore intersections between cinema, philosophy, and cultural trauma.

Lippit’s publications include four major 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 Cinema without Reflection (2016). His work bridges disciplines through innovative theoretical frameworks, analyzing topics such as Derridean deconstruction applied to film, zoopolitical theory, and post-disaster media representation.

His scholarship has advanced understanding of experimental cinema’s formal innovations, the spectral dimensions of cultural memory, and animal studies’ intersections with visual media. He has contributed to defining contemporary film studies through interdisciplinary approaches combining critical theory, historical analysis, and aesthetic critique.