Jon Wagner received a doctorate in critical studies/cinema-TV from USC in 1991 and is a doctorate candidate in comparative literature at the University of Colorado. His bachelor's degree and master's degree are in English Literature and Creative Writing. He has published articles both hard and digital on a variety of subjects, ranging from the nature of cinematic realism and spectacle to avant-garde video and television, and has published several essays on Modern French poetry along with poetry of his own.

In addition to teaching at CalArts, he teaches film theory at USC. His book of translations, Fugitive Suns: Poetry of Andrée Chedid (with Lynne Goodhart), was published through the Green Integer series of Sun and Moon Press in 1999, and he is currently completing a book on TV Theory, Penelope's Screen: The Cinema of Television.