Joshua Sperling

  • Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Creative Writing
  • 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. 

Notes

Joshua Sperling Published in Aeon

December 5, 2019

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Creative Writing  Joshua Sperling's essay about John Berger was published in Aeon.

Sebastiaan Faber Interviews Joshua Sperling

September 6, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber interviewed Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Creative Writing Joshua Sperling about his biography of John Berger. The conversation was published in the Brooklyn Rail.

Joshua Sperling Writes Book

February 25, 2019

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Joshua Sperling wrote A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger. Sperling has held several talks about the book at locations including the London Review of Books, BOZAR, School of Visual Arts, McNally Jackson, and Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles.

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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