Allen S. Weiss teaches in the Departments of Performance Studies and Cinema Studies at New York University. He is the author of numerous books, including "Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Garden and 17th-century Metaphysics", "Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime", and "Varieties of Audio Mimesis: Musical Evocations of Landscape".