The Somnophile’s Guide to Cinema: An Interview with Jean Ma

Abstract

Since the inaugural event in 1995, the biennial conference has convened scholars from a variety of fields, such as film studies, museum studies, art history, and cultural anthropology, in accordance with the interdisciplinary approach of the program. This interview took place during Professor Ma's visit to the University of Rochester in April 2019. Before the conference, students from the graduate program of Visual and Cultural Studies and the English department formed a reading group, which read and discussed parts of Ma's first two books-Melancholy Drift: Marking Time in Chinese Cinema and Sounding the Modern Woman-as well as a portion of her current book At the Edges of Sleep, forthcoming with University of California Press. The excerpt combined writings from two chapters, both of which closely engage with the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and demonstrate how Ma's approach to the question of sleep in this project is inspired by his films and art.