Vivian Sobchack

Vivian Carol Sobchack is an American cinema and media theorist and cultural critic.

Sobchack's work on science fiction films and phenomenology of film is perhaps her most recognized. She is a prolific writer and has authored numerous books and articles across a diverse range of subjects; from historiography to film noir to work on documentary film, new media, and film feminism. Her work has been featured in such publications as Film Comment and Camera Obscura. She is the author and editor of many books on film and media.

Sobchack was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. Her early life was spent on Long Island until she moved to Manhattan to attend Barnard College. While at Barnard, Sobchack often frequented the nearby legendary Thalia Theater, which offered up a diverse schedule of classic and foreign films. She received her degree in English Literature in 1961 with aspirations to write fiction. She published some poetry and began work on a novel, but within two years of graduating moved into a career counseling college grads in search of their first jobs. This ultimately led her to a new position, sponsored by President Johnson’s Anti-Poverty Program, counseling troubled high school dropouts towards sustainable careers. She remained in New York until 1966 when she relocated to Salt Lake City where her husband had taken an Assistant Professorship in the English Department at the University of Utah. It was there that Sobchack got her first teaching experience. She took part-time work with the University, teaching film courses—some of the first offered in the early 1970s.

She stayed with the part-time teaching at the University of Utah while she brought up her son. In Salt Lake City, she also became involved in the establishment of a film club with the intention of bringing hard-to-find films to a city with only one art house theater. The success of this film club eventually led to the inauguration of the Utah Film Festival (which, as it grew, eventually led to the establishment of the US Film Festival and ultimately, the Sundance Film Festival).

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