Norman M. Klein (born 1945) is an American urban and media historian, as well as an author of fictional works.Ben Ehrenreich. "Old Haunts Revisited."The Los Angeles Times. July 2, 2006. In 2011, the Los Angeles Times put Klein's 1997 book The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory on its "Best L.A. Books" list.Christopher Reynolds. "The Best L.A. Books? Let's Make a List (Part 2, nonfiction)."The Los Angeles Times. October 4, 2011.

Early life Born in Brooklyn, Klein grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where he regularly heard people tell stories that were partly true and partly not, which informed his view of people's personal histories.Interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist. 2015. In 1966, he earned a B.A. in history at Brooklyn College and then went on to the University of Minnesota, where he earned an M.A. in French Intellectual History in 1968. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began teaching at California Institute of the Arts before earning his M. F. A. in Cinema and Professional Writing from the University of Southern California.

Career Since 1974, Klein has been a professor in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, where he is on the faculty of both the Master's Program in Aesthetics and Politics and the Center for Integrated Media.

As layered systems that resemble certain genres of games and other media narrative formats, Klein's novels primarily offer literary alternatives. Having coined the term "scripted space" in 1998, Klein (with Margo Bistis) coined "Wunder roman" in 2012 to characterize a particular kind of picaresque novel whose parts function as a narrative engine.

In 2004, the Beall Center for Art and Technology organized a retrospective of Klein's work.

Klein has been a professor in the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts for over four decades.

Works (books and multimedia projects) Tales of the Floating Class, Writings 1982-2017: Essays and Fictions on Globalization and Neo-Feudalism. Los Angeles. Golden Spike Press (2018)Michael Ned Holte. "Urban Legends: Michael Ned Holte on Norman M. Klein's Tales of the Floating Class". Artforum. May 2019. p 55 The Imaginary 20th Century co-authored with Margo Bistis- a book (2016) and media narrative (2014)The Imaginary 20th Century. Karlsruhe. KZM Center for Art & Media. 2016. Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales (2006)Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales. Los Angeles. Otis Books/Seismicity Editions. 2006. The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects (2004)The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects . New York. New Press. 2004. Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986 (novella and DVD) (2003)Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-1986. Karlsruhe. Annenberg Center for Communication; Los Angeles. and KZM Center for Art and Media. 2003. Bleeding Through won a Special Award for New Media at the 2004 Split Film Festival. One of three nominations for the "Image Award" at transmediale.04, Bleeding Through won second prize. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (1997/2008)The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. London. Verso. 1997. Revised edition 2008 7 Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon (1993)7 Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. London. Verso. 1993. Twentieth-Century Art Theory (1990)Twentieth-Century Art Theory. Co-edited with Richard Hertz. Upper Saddle River. Prentice-Hall. 1990. Twentieth Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict (1990)Twentieth Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict . Co-edited with Martin Schiesl. New York. Regina. 1990.

Museum catalog essays Klein has written catalog essays for Doug Aitken,"A Granular History of Space: Doug Aitken."Doug Aitken: Electric Earth. Los Angeles. Museum of Contemporary Art. 2016. Chip Lord,"A Revised History of the Screen in Three Stages." Chip Lord. College Park. The University of Maryland. 2015. "The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside,""Whole Earths, 1968-1980." The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside . Berlin. Haus der Kulturen der Welt. 2013. "More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness,""The Charm of the Lie." More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness. Minneapolis. Minneapolis Institute of Art. 2012. "Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach 1974-1999,""The Ironies of Global Video, 1973-2000." Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach 1974-1999. Long Beach. Long Beach Museum of Art. 2012. Simon Denny,"Suburban Ruin: Notes on the Dismantling of the American Psyche." Cruise Line. Aachen. Neuer Aachener Kunstverein. 2011 Kutluğ Ataman,"Paradises." Kutluğ Ataman: Paradise. Newport Harbor. Orange County Museum of Art. 2007. Karina Nimmerfall,"Cinematic Photography and the Misremembering of the City." Karina Nimmerfall: Cinematic Maps, 2004-2006. Graz. Camera Austria. 2007. Rossen Crow,"Historical Paintings of the Global Present."Night of the Palomino. Los Angeles. Honor Fraser Inc. 2007. Peter Friedl,"Grounding Play: Imaginary Children in An Era of Global Paranoia." Peter Friedl: Theory of Justice 1964-2006. Barcelona. MACBA. 2006. Christian Jankowski,"A Spot in Time: Christian Jankowski's Startling Special Effect." Everything Fell Together. Des Moines. Des Moines Art Center. 2006. Bjørn Melhus,"How to Irrigate Your Personality: The Hollowing Out of America." Bjørn Melhus: Auto Center Drive. Stuttgart. Hatje Cantz. 2005. George Stone,"Fault Lines: The Machines of George Stone." George Stone: Probabilities. Los Angeles. Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. 2003. "Las Vegas Aesthetics,""Vegaesthetics." The Magic Hour: The Convergence of Art and Las Vegas. Graz. Neue Galerie. 2001. "Animations,""Animations: Painting with a Machine Gun." Animations. Long Island City. MoMA/PS1. 2001. "Au-Delà du Spectacle,""Architainment, The Industrialization of Desire, 1955-2010." Au-Delà du Spectacle. Paris. Centre Pompidou. 2000. "Reading California,""Gold Fevers: Global California and the Social Imaginary." Reading California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000. Los Angeles. Los Angeles County Art Museum. 2000. Martin Kippenberger,"Kippenberger's Folies." Martin Kippenberger: The Last Stop West. Stuttgart. Hatje Cantz. 1999. and Helter Skelter."Consumer-Built City: Sixty Years of Apocalyptic Imagery." Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s. Los Angeles. Museum of Contemporary Art. 1992.

Digital media theory Klein's most cited publications on digital media include "After the Crash: Imagining New Paradigms for the Study of Collective Memory," Erasure: The Spectre of Memory. John Conomos (ed.). London. Libri. 2015. "Labor, Architecture and the New Feudalism: Urban Space as Experience," Architecture and the Worker. Peggy Deamer (ed.). London. Bloomsbury. 2015. "Spaces Between Traveling Through Bleeds, Apertures, and Wormholes inside the Database Novel," Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin (eds.). Cambridge. MIT Press. 2009. and "Media as an Instrument of Power."Iconoclash. Bruno Latour (ed.).Cambridge. MIT Press. 2002.

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