Joshua Sperling

  • Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media
  • Creative Media Director for Arts and Sciences

Areas of Study

Education

  • PhD, Yale University
  • MFA, Brooklyn College
  • BA, University of California, Berkeley

Biography

Joshua Sperling's interests focus on 20th and 21st century aesthetics, the interplay of culture and politics, and the history of cinema. His first book, A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger, was published in 2018 by Verso. On its release it was reviewed in the New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Bookforum, among other outlets. It has since been translated into Korean, complex and simplified Chinese, and Turkish.

Professor Sperling holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College and a dual PhD in comparative literature and film & media studies from Yale. At Oberlin, he teaches courses on documentary, Hollywood, Latin American cinema, contemporary auteurism, and narrative. He also helps to coordinate the Obiewood program and is the Creative Media Director for the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Spring 2025

Modern Latin American Cinema — CIME 175

Narrative Across Platforms — CIME 377

Fall 2025

Introduction to American Documentary: 1960 to the Present — CIME 112

Contemporary World Auteurs — CIME 321

Notes

Joshua Sperling Essay Published in "Tussle Magazine"

May 14, 2025

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Joshua Sperling published an essay on the visual artist Iliana Ortega in Tussle Magazine.

Joshua Sperling Publishes Essay

September 21, 2021

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Joshua Sperling published an essay, "How to Read Like a Translator," for Public Books.

Joshua Sperling publishes two reviews

May 19, 2021

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Joshua Sperling recently published two review essays, one on wartime Hollywood for Senses of Cinema, and another on Van Gogh's letters for the Brooklyn Rail.

 

News

Winter Term in Oberlin: 2020

February 24, 2020

Winter Term is a time of year when Oberlin students are encouraged to conduct independent or group projects outside of courses related to their majors. Pursuits can be done on or off campus with students choosing to work almost anywhere on the map. This year we highlight some of the work by the more than 900 students who completed projects in Oberlin.

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