Scholarly Interests:
Tamas Nagypal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Languages, and Cultures. His current research examines the affective economy of neoliberal capitalism in cinema and interactive moving image media through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxist value-form theory, and critical masculinity studies. The working title of his book in progress is Noir Screens of Neoliberalism: The Dark Passage to Human Capital. Tamas’s teaching history includes courses in classical and contemporary film theory and history, future cinema, animation, and queer cinema. He is also the founding member of the Spiral Film and Philosophy Collective, which organizes conferences, workshops, and scholarly and artist talks.

Teaching Statement:
I am committed to helping students develop into autonomous critical thinkers with the tools and passion to actively engage with their surroundings, both in their daily lives and chosen careers. I place great emphasis on understanding the historical and socio-cultural context of the texts I teach and encourage students to examine their own viewing and reading positions in the same way, decentering their familiar assumptions and comfort zones. In the classroom, I combine lecturing and show-and-tell techniques with active learning methods such as small group discussions and debates, close reading exercises, and conference-style presentations.

Selected Scholarly Activity:
“Snow Noir and the Topology of Shame.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies of Media and Culture 44, no. 2 (2022)

“From Capitalocene to Anthropocene: The Feminine Ecology of Snowpocalypse Films.” In Lacan and the Environment. Edited by Clint Burnham and Paul Kingsbury. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

“From Death Drive to Entrepreneurship of the Self: Film Noir’s Genealogy of the Neoliberal Subject.” Postmodern Culture 29, no. 3 (2019)

“Mourning the Loss of a Communist Revolution that Didn’t Happen: The Undead Historicity of Italy’s Anni di piombo in Zombi 2, Year of the Gun and Arrivederci amore, ciao.” Mediations 31, no. 1 (2017): 47-69.

“Hanna: The Child as Monster Who is Supposed to Believe.” In Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters: Essays on Cinema’s Holy Terrors. Edited by Markus Bohlmann and Sean Moreland, 245-260. Jefferson: McFarland, 2015.