Thomas Zummer

Thomas Zummer lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School/EGS (Switzerland) and at Tyler School of Art (Temple University, Philadelphia).

His academic career started out in paleozoology, philosophy and film. In 1982, Zummer began his studies with Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida in the Department of Comparative Literature at Yale University. He was later a research assistant to Michel Foucault at the University of California, Berkeley. Zummer studied with Umberto Eco, Paul Ricœur and John Searle in the Institute of Semiotics and Structural Studies at the University of Toronto between 1981 and 1986.

His theoretical work tackles the boundaries between the virtual and the real (Projection and Dis/embodiment: Genealogies of the Virtual, for the catalogue titled Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977). His texts as well as his curatorial work investigate the nature of memory in relation to images, cinema science fiction (Arrestments: Corporeality and Mediation, for Suturas y fragmentos: Cuerpos y territorios en la ciencia-ficción, Fundación Antoni Tàpies) and the phantasmagorical in visual biography.

Zummer has written texts about Eleanor Antin, Vik Muniz, Leslie Thornton, Heleen Decuininck and Harun Farocki, among others. He has also curated several exhibitions in spaces such as CinéClub/Anthology Film Archives, Thread Waxing Space, Wexner Center for the Arts, Katonah Museum of Art and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.