Alan N. Shapiro, Hypermodernism, Hyperreality, Posthumanism

Blog and project archive about media theory, science fiction theory, and creative coding

Passing: Franco La Polla

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Franco La Polla died in Pavia, Italy on February 27, 2009.

From 2004 to 2007, La Polla was Professor of the History of Cinema, and Director of the Department of Music and Theatre (DAMS) at the University of Bologna.

For 30 years, La Polla was Professor of the History of American Literature.

In the summer of 2006, I had coffee for two hours with Franco La Polla near Piazza Maggiore in Bologna. Our conversation was among the most extraordinary and magical two hours of my life. My impresssion was that La Polla had the deep knowledge of all of world history and literature of a classicist, and that he also applied this vast intellectual culture and sophistication to the study of contemporary film and TV. He told me that he was thinking about writing a book about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

La Polla spoke perfect and flawless American English.

He was a great guy and I instinctively liked him a lot.

He had read my book Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, and he spoke about it with great generosity.

La Polla was the author of 16 books.

He published 3 books on Star Trek. These books are better than anything on Star Trek that has been published in English.

I am very saddened by this loss.

This is the 150th Post/Article of my website.

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