
Before joining the clinical faculty at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center I spent almost two decades as a professor of the history and theory of communication at NYU. I was interested in situations where communication breaks down — the causes, the consequences. My first book, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (Zone Books, 2012), was a historical investigation into our experiences of bureaucracy, especially when things go wrong (“a bright and sparkling study … provocative, original, and a very good read” — The New York Review of Books; “eccentric” – The New York Times). I’m currently working on a book for Random House about the everyday ways people drive each other crazy (gaslighting, mind games, double binds, passive aggression, etc.) — there’s a conversation about it here. I’m represented by Alia Hanna Habib at The Gernert Company.
Over the years I’ve been a Fulbright scholar; a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; and a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities, where I also serve on the board of directors. I helped build the Feminist Theory Archive at Brown and the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis in Brooklyn. Three of my graduate students went on to academic careers (Harvard, the New School, and UC Berkeley); two went on to train as psychoanalysts.