P. Adams Sitney

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P. Adams Sitney was a leading historian of avant-garde cinema. He is the author of Visionary Film: The American Avant Garde, which was published in 1974. In 1970, Sitney co-founded the Anthology Film Archives, an international center for the preservation, study and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental and avant-garde cinema.

Sitney authored four other books about film, edited many journals and anthologies, and received numerous honors, including the American Academy in Berlin's Anna-Maria Kellen Berlin Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sitney joined the Princeton faculty in 1980 and as a professor of visual arts, he taught courses on film history, major filmmakers, the language of cinema and avant-garde cinema. He also taught courses outside of film studies, participating in humanities sequence courses on great books in Western European and American civilization. His efforts earned him Princeton's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2010. In 2016, he transferred to emeritus status. Sitney earned his bachelor's degree and his Ph.D. from Yale.

Sitney died at home in Matunuck, Rhode Island, on June 8, 2025. He was 80 years old.

Read Sitney's obituary published by Princeton University

Read Sitney's obituary in New York Times