Lawrence Garcia

Lawrence Garcia is a PhD student at the Cinema Studies Institute. After receiving his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics at the University of British Columbia, he worked as an electrical engineer while also freelancing as a film critic, contributing to publications such as Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Cineaste, Mubi's Notebook, Reverse Shot, The A.V. Club, and others. In 2021, he left engineering to pursue a master's degree in Cinema & Media Studies at York University, where he wrote a thesis titled "Signs of Genesis: A Study of Ambiguity in Contemporary Experimental Cinema." His interests include aesthetics, film theory, philosophy, experimental or avant-garde cinema, with a present focus on Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and the inferential semantics of Robert Brandom. He co-runs a reading group on Deleuze's Cinema books.

Awards

• Governor General’s Gold Medal, York University (2023)
• Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Master's Scholarship (2022)
• York Graduate Scholarship, York University (2021)
• Trek Excellence Scholarship for Continuing Students, University of British Columbia (2015)
• Trek Excellence Scholarship for Continuing Students, University of British Columbia (2014)
• Charles and Jane Banks Scholarship, University of British Columbia (2013)
• Elizabeth and Leslie Gould Scholarship in Engineering, University of British Columbia (2013)