Mark Poster (July 5, 1941 – October 10, 2012) was Professor Emeritus of

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and

Film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

and

Media Studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

UC Irvine UC may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' University Challenge'', a popular British quiz programme airing on BBC Two ** ''University Challenge (New Zealand)'', the New Zealand version of the British programme * Universal Century, one of the t ...

, where he also taught in the Critical Theory Emphasis. He was pivotal to "bringing French critical theory to the U.S., and went on to analyse contemporary media."
"Mark Poster 1941-2012 obituary," article 8 November 2012 by Matthew Reisz in ''Times Higher Education'' magazine, UK

Early life

Poster was born in New York on 5 July 1941, studied at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

Wharton School and completed a PhD in history at New York University in 1968. His research interests included European Intellectual and Cultural History, Existentialism, Marxism, Critical Theory, and Media Studies.

Career

He was known for surveying the work of

Henri Lefebvre Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of s ...

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

and

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

. He applied the ideas of these and other French theorists (including

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

and

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed th ...

) to digital

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

of the late 20th and early 21st century (including television, databases, hypertext and the internet). Poster sought to politicize the issue of the use and development of the internet by emphasizing its possibilities for liberatory political change, while acknowledging the existence of a deep digital divide, as well as the interests of transnational corporations and national governments. Poster was also co-editor of the "Electronic Mediations" book series at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

Press, which includes almost 40 titles which explore the humanistic and social implications of the internet, virtual reality technologies, video games, literary hypertexts, and new media art forms.

Death

Poster died on 10 October 2012 of pneumonia and is survived by his wife, Annette Schlichter, and two daughters.

Books

* ''The Utopian Thought of Restif de la Bretonne'' (1971) * ''Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser'' (1975) * ''Critical Theory of the Family'' (1978) * ''Sartre's Marxism'' (1982) * ''Foucault, Marxism, and History: Mode of Production Versus Mode of Information'' (1985) * ''Critical Theory and Poststructuralism: In Search of a Context'' (1989) * ''The Mode of Information: Post-structuralism and Social Contexts'' (1990) * ''The Second Media Age'' (1995). Chapter 2 available a
Postmodern Virtualities
* ''What's the Matter with the Internet?'' (Electronic Mediations series) (2001) * ''The Information Subject'' (2001) * ''Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines'' (2006) * ''Deleuze and New Technology'' (2009)

Notes

External links

Archival collections

Guide to the Mark Poster Papers.
Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

UC Irvine faculty page

UCIspace @ the Libraries digital collection: Mark Poster born digital files, 1985-2009

Interview with Poster

What's Left: Materialist responses to the internet
by Poster {{DEFAULTSORT:Poster, Mark Mass media theorists Cultural historians 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Postmodern theory Postmodern writers 1941 births 2012 deaths People from New York City Philosophers of technology New York University alumni Deaths from pneumonia in the United States