He has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. His publications on the visual arts include the book Transmutations: Understanding Literary and Pictorial Caricature, and numerous articles, most recently one on Alfred Hitchcock's WWII French films for the fine journal Images. Currently, he is writing entries on Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Abel Gance, and Jacques Cousteau for a major biographical dictionary.