Mark Epstein

Mark W. Epstein was raised in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, the son of Hans J. and Cathleen Epstein. He is the brother of medieval economic historian Stephan R. Epstein, and uncle of Sean Astuti Epstein.

He was educated in Canton Ticino, and later attended the University of Zurich where he studied philosophy, linguistics and modern languages. His early interests in biology and animal behavior eventually went in the direction of communication and hence (also) philosophy of language. He later pursued his literary and cultural studies at Princeton University.

He is currently focusing especially on the works of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giacomo Leopardi.

Mark W. Epstein is currently a rater for various testing programs at Educational Testing Service; a translator: Statistical Mechanics in a Nutshell (Princeton: PUP, 2010), Dictionary of Communism (Princeton: PUP, 2010), Forms of Becoming: the Evolutionary Biology of Development (Princeton: PUP, 2009), Another Mother: The Symbolic Order of Italian Feminism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and Life: a Modern Invention (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017) in addition to several essays and other publications.

He is the co-editor of Creative Interventions: the Role of the Intellectual in Contemporary Italian Culture (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009), of TotArt: The Visual Arts, Fascism(s) and Mass-society (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017) and of Mapping Leopardi. Poetic and Philosophical Intersections (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming). Some of his recent publications include “Michele, tra critica, speranza e martirio” in Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Alberto Moravia e La ciociara. Letteratura. Storia. Cinema. II. (Avellino: Edizioni Sinestesie, 2014), “Nomenclature, Terminology and Language” in Bionomina, 5: 1-56, March 2012, “Magris, Symbolic Spaces and European Identity” in Journal of European Studies, vol. 42, nr. 4, December 2012, pp. 362-374, “Alcune osservazioni sul materialismo” in Strategie del Moderno: Critica, Narrativa, Teatro. (Avellino: Edizioni Sinestesie, 2012), “Uccellacci e uccellini: vie nuove verso il realismo” in Pier Paolo Pasolini: Prospettive americane (Pesaro: Metauro, 2016), “La 'figura' in Pasolini: l'intersezione semiotica tra materiale e concettuale” in Attraversamenti Culturali. Cinema, letteratura, musica e arti visuali nell'Italia contemporanea (Firenze: Cesati, 2016), and “La ricezione di Procuste: Pasolini visto dall'Impero” in Pasolini oggi. Fortuna internazionale e ricezione critica (Venezia: Marsilio, 2016).

. He is on the editorial board of Sinestesieonline.