Mark Dery

Mark Dery is a cultural critic best known for his essays on Afrofuturism (a term he coined) and culture jamming (a phenomenon he popularized). His byline has appeared in a broad range of publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Elle, Bookforum, Wired, The Washington Post, and The LA Review of Books. A frequent lecturer in the U.S. and Europe, he has been a professor of journalism at NYU, taught in the Yale School of Art, was appointed Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow at UC Irvine, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. Dery’s books include two critiques of cyberculture, the anthology Flame Wars, which he edited, and Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (translated into eight languages); two studies of American mythologies (and pathologies), The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink and the essay collection I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams (University of Minnesota Press, 2012; rights have been sold in Brazil; remaining translation rights with agent); and a biography, Born To Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey (Little, Brown, 2018; rights have been sold in the UK and China; remaining translation rights with agent).