Meet the folks who make the Cyborgology Blog happen.
- (photo by Aaron Thompson)
Editors
Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) is a social media theorist, Contributing Editor of The New Inquiry, and a sociology graduate student at the University of Maryland, working on a dissertation about self-documentation and social media. The research is driven most fundamentally by the understanding that we increasingly live in an “augmented reality,” a perspective that views the digital and physical as enmeshed, opposed to viewing them as distinct (what he calls “digital dualism”). Nathan is also interested in and has published on how social media has triggered the rise of the digital “prosumer” (one who produces that which they consume and vice versa). For instance, Facebook users are both producers and consumers of the site. Together with George Ritzer, Nathan has founded the Prosumer Studies Research Group, which has published work on the topic. Finally, Nathan is also an active photographer and musician in Washington DC. His website is: nathanjurgenson.com.
PJ Rey (@pjrey) is a Sociology PhD student at the University of Maryland. His research examines the “culture of hyper-visibility” that has developed in tandem with online social media. He argues that visibility may produce serious negative consequences for certain groups (e.g., LGBT persons, high school students, small towns, etc.), while simply augmenting the social capital of other technologically literate and high-status groups. Visibility has broad implications for the operation of power in society, becoming a mechanism responsible for new forms of social inequality. He also studies a variety of related topics such as labor on social media, online dating, and Internet use and well-being. For more information, visit: www.pjrey.net.
Weekly Contributors
David A. Banks (@DA_Banks) is a M.S./Ph.D. student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before coming to RPI, David spent four years getting his B.A. in Urban Studies at New College of Florida and is a proud board member of his alumni association. His research interests include space, place, cyborgs, and networked bodies. He cares very deeply about what built environments do to people, and what people can do to their environments. He is currently working under the NSF’s GK-12 fellowship program, teaching science in urban school districts and developing new learning technologies. David is also an avid star trek fan, an anarchist, a comic book nerd, and addicted to his twitter account. Find that account and other stuff at www.davidabanks.org.
Whitney Erin Boesel (@phenatypical) is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before starting graduate school, Whitney graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Writing and worked in the Cambridge, MA non-profit sector. Her Masters work at UCSC focused on direct-to-consumer genetic testing, personal genomics, and self-quantification practices as part of a new form of biomedicalization that she cheekily terms “biomedicalization 2.0”; she remains interested the changing relationships between ‘the public,’ expert knowledges, and technology. Whitney is in the initial stages of planning her dissertation project, which will focus on self-quantification both in relation to other forms of self-documentation and as a particular way of knowing; her other major (academic) interests include social media, sex and gender, and the sociology of emotion. Her theatre scripts have been performed in Cambridge, MA, and her creative writing has appeared both under her legal name and under various pseudonyms.
Jenny Davis (@Jup83) is a postdoctoral researcher with the Social Psychology Lab in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. She studies identity, culture, technology and communication. She approaches her research theoretically and methodologically from multiple directions, utilizing formal theory and experimental work, survey research, and participant observation and ethnography. She is engaged in several ongoing projects which often make guest appearances—in varying forms—through the content of her weekly blog posts. Her publications appear in sociology, communications, and interdisciplinary journals. An active proponent of accessible scholarship, you can find select articles un-paywalled on her academia.edu page.
Sarah Wanenchak (@dynamicsymmetry) is a PhD student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her current research focuses on contentious politics and communications technology in a global context, particularly the role of emotion mediated by technology as a mobilizing force. She has also done work on the place of culture in combat and warfare, including the role of video games in modern war and meaning-making. More generally, she has long been interested in narrative and storytelling, and how stories work to shape wider social discourses. Along those lines, she occasionally publishes speculative fiction under a pseudonym.
Past Contributors
David Paul Strohecker (@dpsFTW) is getting his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies under Patricia Hill Collins and George Ritzer, focusing on issues of intersectionality, consumption, and popular culture. He got his BA in 2009 from Texas A&M University, where he studied under Joe R. Feagin, and wrote for the blog RacismReview.com. He currently studies popular culture, but remains interested in issues of race relations, white privilege, and gender inequality. He is currently doing work on the popularization of tattooing, a project on the revolutionary pedagogy of public sociology, and more theoretical work on zombie films as a vehicle for expressing social and cultural anxieties.
Guest Authors
Nilofar Ansher is pursuing her Master of Arts in Ancient Civilizations from the University of Mumbai, India. She is an editor, writer and researcher and blogs at http://www.trailofpapercuts.wordpress.com. Twitter: @culture_curate
Jeremy Antley is a writer/student/gamer who currently lives in Portland, OR and writes on all sorts of interests on his blog, Peasant Muse. Follow Jeremy on Twitter- @jsantley.
Sally Applin is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, in the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC). Sally researches the impact of technology on culture, and vice versa.
Mike Bulajewski (@MrTeacup) is a Master’s student in Human-Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington.
Patricia Hill Collins
Jessie Daniels
Piergiorgio Degli Esposti studies Market and Consumption Behavior and is Assistant professor at Bologna University, Italy and a Marketing Consultant.
Ned Drummond (@maneatingflower) is a designer and artisan currently living in Washington, DC.
Adriano Farano
Nathan Fisk is a danah boyd fanboy and adjunct lecturer teaching “Youth and Teens Online” in the Science & Technology Studies department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Cyrille Frank
Deen Freelon
E. Cabell Hankinson Gathman
Dan Greene
Yu (Rachel) Guo
Derek Hansen (@shakmatt)
Doug Hill is a journalist and independent scholar who has studied the history and philosophy of technology for fifteen years. More of this and other technology-related topics can be found on his blog, The Question Concerning Technology.
Rob Horning (@marginalutility) is an editor of the New Inquiry.
Ashlee Humphreys
Costas K
Katie King
Kari Kraus
Airi Lampinen (@airi_) is a graduate student in Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. Currently, she is interning at Microsoft Research New England.
Sam Ladner
Cheri Lucas (@cherilucas) focuses on literary nonfiction and memoir on her blog, Writing Through the Fog, and explores ideas on the self, relationships, social media, memory, and home in a physical-digital world. She is based in San Francisco.
Timothy McGettigan is a professor of sociology at Colorado State University – Pueblo.
Christine Moore studies sexuality and is currently pursuing her Masters in sociology at the University of Texas San Antonio. She reluctantly tweets @thisthingblows
Gene Morrow
Sang-Hyoun Pahk is a sociology student at the university of hawaii at manoa.
Dave Parry (@academicdave) studies how the digital network transforms our political relations. He is an assistant professor of Emerging Media at the University of Texas at Dallas. His work can be found at http://www.outsidethetext.com.
Matt Rafalow is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at University of California, Irvine, studying intersections of technology, youth, and social inequality.
Zachary Richer
George Ritzer is a distinguished professor at the University of Maryland and the author of many books including The McDonaldization of Society and Enchanting a Disenchanted World.
L. M. Sacasas is a PhD student in the University of Central Florida’s “Texts & Technology” program exploring the intersections of bodies, spaces, and technology. He blogs at The Frailest Thing and you can follow his tweets at @FrailestThing
Evan Selinger is an associate professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology. Follow him on Twitter: @evanselinger
Behzod Sirjani is a PhD Student in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University. He thinks out loud frequently on Twitter (@beh_zod) and on his blog.
Marc Smith (@marc_smith) is a sociologist specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction. Smith co-founded the Social Media Research Foundation (http://www.smrfoundation.org/), a non-profit devoted to open tools, data, and scholarship related to social media research.
Bonnie Stewart is an educator, writer, and Ph.D student exploring social media subjectivities at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Francesca Tanmizi is an ex-Sociology major at Loyola Marymount University who only realized she missed writing Sociology essays after graduation.
Olivier Tesquet
Samuel Tettner is a Venezuela-born globally situated cyborg, interested in science, technology and their critical and empowering understanding, currently pursuing a Masters degree in Society, Science and Technology in the Netherlands.
Julia Vergely
James Vincent is a writer and journalist from London. He tweets in a generally noncommittal fashion from @jjvincent.
Jessica Vitak
William Yagatich
Samuel Zwaan (@mediawetenschap) is a teacher and student in Media Studies at Utrecht University
