queer geek theory

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, finishing up a dissertation about queer temporality and cultural representations of the future. I am housed in the English department and am also getting a Certificate in Gender Studies. My work is interdisciplinary and strongly influenced by courses, students, and professors in USC’s American Studies and Ethnicity, Critical Studies in the Cinema School, and the Institute for Multimedia Literacy. I have a final-year fellowship for 2011/12 and will graduate in May 2012.

I am a participant in feminist science fiction and media fandom, and I’m very interested in the ways fan communities engage in critical theorizing and activism (for example, through online discussion and fan video). I’m working on using some of these forms in my own scholarly work, in addition to standard academic practices.

Between 2008 and 2010 I was part of the founding editorial team for the Symposium section of the open access online journal Transformative Works and Cultures, which accepts work of interest to both academic and nonacademic audiences. I am still involved with the journal and would be happy to talk about possible submissions for both the peer reviewed and editorially reviewed sections.

This site is a hub for my professional activities on- and offline, and also a place for me to raise questions about queerness, geekiness, politics, gender, race, capitalism, ethics, and scholarship. Like most things on the internet, these pages are a work in progress.

My email address is lothian at usc dot edu or alexislothian at gmail dot com.