Biography

I have been at Sussex since 2006. Before arriving here I taught at the University of York and at University College Cork.

My writing ranges across a variety of overlapping fields of inquiry. I am particularly interested in cinema's engagement with other aesthetic forms (literature, architecture, visual art) and in the mutual implication of theory (aesthetic, political) and material history.

My latest book, Meshes of the Afternoon (BFI Film Classics, BFI/Palgrave, 2011) reconsiders Maya Deren's and Alexander Hammid's avant-garde film in new political, biographical, and aesthetic contexts.

My first book, Stupendous Miserable City: Pasolini's Rome (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) reevaluates Pasolini's cinema in the context of the urban and architectural history of Rome in the 1950s and 60s. 

I am a founding co-editor of the journal World Picture. The journal's issues have focused on jargon, the obvious, happiness, arousal, and sustainability. The journal was named one of the top ten film criticism sites by Film Comment.

I have also edited three books: Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (co-edited with Elena Gorfinkel, University of Minnesota Press, 2011); Antonioni: Centenary Essays (co-edited with Laura Rascaroli, BFI/Palgrave, 2011); and On Michael Haneke (co-edited with Brian Price, Wayne State University Press, 2010).

Currently I am at work on a monograph (provisionally titled 'The Spectacle of Property') that studies the representation of the house in American cinema. The book explores the imbrication of cinematic narration, visual pleasure and private property and is variously invested in aesthetic theory, political theory, cultural history and film history. I am also at work on another monograph (under contract with the BFI) about the problem of cinematic style as a form or mode of labour.

Apart from what is obvious from the above, my research interests include: European art cinema, the history and theory of the avant-garde, queer theory and queer aesthetic production, relations between cinema and literature, the history and theory of architecture, and the theory of cinematic style.

Office hours for spring 2013: Thursdays, 11-12; Fridays, 12-1, or by appointment.

Rhodes, John David (2012) Belabored: the work of style. Framework, 53 (1). pp. 47-64. ISSN 0306-7661

Rascaroli , Laura and Rhodes, John David, eds. (2011) Antonioni: centenary essays. A BFI book . BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, London. ISBN 9781844573844

Rhodes, John David and Gorfinkel, Elena, eds. (2011) Taking place: location and the moving image. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 9780816665167

Rhodes, John David (2011) Meshes of the Afternoon. BFI Film Classics . Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781844573776

Price, Brian and Rhodes, John David, eds. (2010) On Michael Haneke. Contemporary approaches to film and television series . Wayne State University Press, Detroit. ISBN 9780814334058

Rhodes, John David (2010) Pasolini's exquisite flowers: the "cinema of poetry" as a theory of art cinema. In: Global art cinema: new theories and histories. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 142-163. ISBN 9780195385625

Rhodes, John David (2010) The spectacle of skepticism: Haneke's long takes. In: On Michael Haneke. Contemporary Film and Television Series . Wayne State University Press, Detroit, pp. 87-104. ISBN 9780814334058

Rhodes, John David (2008) Collective anxiety: Corviale, Rome, and the legacy of '68. Log, 13 (14). pp. 75-86.

Rhodes, John David (2008) Talking ugly. World Picture, 1. ISSN 1938-1700

Rhodes, John David (2007) Allegory, mise-en-scéne, AIDS: interpreting safe. In: The cinema of Todd Haynes: all that heaven allows. Wallflower Press, pp. 68-78. ISBN 9781904764779

Rhodes, John David (2007) Stupendous, miserable city: Pasolini's Rome. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 9780816649303

Rhodes, John David (2006) White Christmas, or modernism. Modernism/modernity, 13 (2). pp. 291-308. ISSN 1071-6068

Rhodes, John David (2006) "Concentrated ground": 'Grey Gardens' and the cinema of the domestic. Framework, 47 (1). pp. 83-105. ISSN 0306-7661

Rhodes, John David (2004) "Scandalous desecration": Accattone against the neorealist city. Framework, 45 (1). pp. 7-33. ISSN 0306-7661

Rhodes, John David (2004) Divorzio all'italiana: divorce Italian style. In: The Cinema of Italy. Wallflower Press, London ; New York, pp. 113-121. ISBN 9781903364987

Rhodes, John David (2003) Peggy Ahwesh. Senses of Cinema, 29.

Rhodes, John David (2000) 'Our beautiful and glorious art lives': the rhetoric of nationalism in early Italian film periodicals. Film History, 12 (3). pp. 308-321. ISSN 0892-2160