The word "homunculus" refers to a functioning system thought to be run by a "little man" that lives inside it. Such a system includes human beings, as some inner entity or agent is somehow assumed to be in our brains, making things run. One example of this was Descartes' use of the homunculus to resolve his theory of dualism, that the soul and the body are two completely separate entities. He posited a "little man" behind the eye to process visual stimuli. Of course, this immediately raises the question of who is behind the "little man's" eyes - another little man (or a little woman)? And so on, ad infinitum.
About Alison McMahan
Alison McMahan was the president of Homunculus Productions from 2006 t0 2025. The company was closed in 2025.
She has over twenty years of experience in film production, both in the U.S. and abroad. From 2001-2003 she held a Mellon Fellowship in Visual Culture at Vassar College where she built Memesis, a virtual reality environment with a biofeedback interface for CAVEs. From 1997 to 2001 she was an associate professor, teaching film history and theory and new media at the University of Amsterdam. She has taught screenwriting in numerous venues, including the Hudson Valley Writer’s Association and the Emerson College extension program in the Netherlands.
She is the author the award-winning book Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Visionary of the Cinema (Bloomsbury 2002), which was translated into Japanese and Spanish. The documentary, Be Natural, (Pamela Green 2018) is based in part on Lost Visionary. She is also the author of The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Hollywood (Bloomsbury 2005) as well as numerous newspaper and scholarly articles on film and new media.
She has a BFA in Drama (Catholic University), an MFA in Film Production (New York University), MFA in Creative Writing (StoneCoast Program at the University of Southern Maine) and a Ph.D. in Film Studies (Union Institute & University).