queer geek theory

 
[This online CV does not include works in progress and under review, references, or my service as an anonymous reviewer. If you would like to see my complete CV, please get in touch.]

Research areas
Queer theory; critical race and gender studies; digital media; online culture, particularly remix and fan culture; speculative fiction in literature, film, and television; cultural theory; technology studies.

Education
PhD in English with Graduate Certificate in Gender Studies. University of Southern California. Entered Fall 2006. Qualified April 2009. Defended March 20, 2012.
Dissertation: Deviant Futures: Queer Temporality and the Cultural Politics of Science Fiction. Directed by Jack Halberstam; committee members Karen Tongson, Kara Keeling, Alice Gambrell, Tara McPherson.

MA with Distinction in Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change. University of Sussex. 2005. Thesis: “Science Fiction in Queer Space/Time: Samuel R. Delany and the Futures of Desire.” Supervisor: Alan Sinfield.

MA (Hons), First Class in English Language and Literature. University of Edinburgh. 2003. With International Exchange Year, University of California at Berkeley, 2001-2.

Academic Employment
Tenure Track Assistant Professor, English Department and Doctoral Program in Literature and Criticism. Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Beginning Fall 2012.

Current Projects
Deviant Futures
This book project analyzes alternative futures dreamed up by feminists, queers, and people of color in transatlantic 20th and 21st-century literature and media, shaping a new archive from which to theorize the cultural politics of utopia, dystopia, futurity, and speculation.

Geek Politics

This multimodal research project on online fan communities’ unruly forms of social justice theorizing, in progress since 2008, has been shaped by my praxis of digital remix production and online participation. Its final form will be a monograph and a set of digital works.

Transformative Mediations
As part of the #transformDH collective (transformdh.org), I am a collaborator in multiple simultaneous projects, including a planned print and digital anthology, that centralize the work of cultural critique––particularly critical feminist, queer, and ethnic studies scholarship and activist––in and with digital media.

Publications

Peer reviewed articles
Alexis Lothian, Kristina Busse and Robin Anne Reid. “Yearning Void and Infinite Potential: Online Slash Fandom as Queer Female Space.” English Language Notes 45.2, Fall/Winter 2007. Special issue on “Queer Space.” Ed. Jane Garrity. 103-112.

“Grinding Axes and Balancing Oppositions: The Transformation of Feminism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Science Fiction.” Extrapolation 47.3, Fall/Winter 2006. 380-395.

Invited short essays and provocations
“Marked Bodies, Transformative Scholarship, and the Question of Theory in Digital Humanities.” Journal of Digital Humanities 1.1. March 2012.


“Speculating Queerer Worlds.” Social Text Periscope: Speculative Life. Part of online dossier curated by Jayna Brown and Alexis Lothian. January 2012.

Kristina Busse and Alexis Lothian. “Scholarly Critiques and Critiques of Scholarship: the Uses of Remix Video.” Camera Obscura 77. September 2011. 139-146.

“An Archive of One’s Own: Subcultural Creativity and the Politics of Conservation.” Transformative Works and Cultures 6. 2011.

“Living in a Den of Thieves: Fan Video and Digital Challenges to Ownership.” Cinema Journal 48.4, Summer 2009. Dossier on feminism and fandom. 130-136.

Book chapters
Kristina Busse and Alexis Lothian. “Bending Gender: Feminist and (Trans)Gender Discourses in the Changing Bodies of Slash Fanfiction.” Internet Fiction(s). Ed. Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Anton Kirchhofer, and Sirpa Leppänen. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar’s Press, 2009. 105-27.

“Utopia, Fiction and Fandom: Conflict, Community, and ‘Queer Female Space.’” The WisCon Chronicles 3: A Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction. Ed. Liz Henry. Seattle: Aqueduct Press. 2009. 189-200.

Reviews, dialogues and other writings
“Feminist Futures Out of Time: Reading Joanna Russ’s What Are We Fighting For.” The Cascadian Subduction Zone: A Literary Quarterly. Joanna Russ Memorial Issue. Forthcoming.

Review of Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger, and Joan Gordon (eds.), Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction. 2008. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 23.1. 2012. 438-441.

“Pattern Recognition: a Dialogue on Racism in Fan Communities.” Moderator and transcriber for roundtable article. Transformative Works and Cultures 3. 2009.

“Samuel R. Delany” and “Queer Science Fiction.” Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Robin Anne Reid. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 2009. 83-85; 251-254

“Interview with the Audre Lorde of the Rings.” Conducted and edited email interview with scholarly blog collective. Transformative Works and Cultures 1. 2008.

“Taxonomies of Transgression.” Review of Dunja M. Mohr, Worlds Apart: Dualism and Transgression in Contemporary Female Dystopias. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2005. Extrapolation 49.2, Summer 2008, 318-324.

Edited collections
Co-curator (with Professor Jayna Brown), Social Text Periscope: Speculative Life. Online dossier of short essays about speculative fiction’s explorations of life, being and selfhood. January 2012.

The WisCon Chronicles 6: Futures of Feminism and Fandom. Seattle: Aqueduct Press. Forthcoming May 2012.

Fellowships and honors
Travel Grant to HASTAC Conference 2011: Digital Scholarly Communication. University of Michigan. Dec 1-3, 2011. Supported by the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Competitive final year award which requires completion of PhD in Spring 2012. College of Letters and Science, University of Southern California. 2011-12

Summer Research Fellowship. Department of English, University of Southern California. 2011.

HASTAC Scholar, 2010-11. Fellowship recipient in the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory sponsored by Duke University, the MacArthur Foundation, and the University of California Humanities Research Institute, among others. http://hastac.org/scholars.

College Merit Fellowship. Department of English, University of Southern California. 2006-7 and 2009-10.

Diana Meehan Fellowship in Feminism and Communication. Center for Feminist Research, University of Southern California. Fall 2009.

Center for Feminist Research Travel Grant. University of Southern California. Spring 2008.

Science Fiction Foundation Graduate Essay Prize: Highly Commended. For the essay “Worlds Beyond Binaries? Feminism and Duality in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Worlds of the Ekumen.” 2004.

Teaching Experience

Assistant Lecturer, Thematic Option Honors Program
University of Southern California. 2010-11. Instructor of record for freshman writing seminars in USC’s highly selective undergraduate honors program in the liberal arts. Courses taught:

– Future Generations: Narratives of Reproductive Speculation: CORE 112 (Spring 2011). This writing-intensive literature seminar, designed and taught independently, deals with how gender, race and sexuality are constructed and critiqued through 20th and 21st-century imaginative representations of alternative modes of human reproduction.

– Writing Seminar 1: CORE 111, a freshman composition class teaching argumentative and analytical writing through close reading of Western literary and philosophical texts from the classical period to modernity. Taught independently in affiliation with the reading survey class CORE 102: Culture and Values: Authority, Love, and Rebellion (Fall 2010; Professor William Handley).

Instructor, SummerTIME 2009 Writing Program: “Writing the Unspoken: Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Violence”
This college preparatory summer program for low-income high school graduates comprised a seminar on gender, sexuality and violence, which discussed literary works and contemporary issues in the light of feminist and critical race studies, and a concurrent intensive composition class themed around the same concerns. Seminars were team-taught, with syllabi developed in collaboration with teaching partners, and writing sections were individually taught.

Teaching Assistant to Professor Judith Halberstam
Gender Studies, University of Southern California. Spring 2009. Gender Studies 210, Social Issues in Gender.

Assistant Lecturer, Writing Program
University of Southern California. Fall 2007-Fall 2008. Instructor of record for Writing 140, a freshman composition class. I organized my class readings and assignments around an internally coherent theme to complement the general education lecture courses with which composition sections are affiliated. These included:

– Writing, Race, and Social Change, a composition class themed around cultural representations of racial conflict and social justice. Different variations of this course taught in affiliation with American Studies 252: Black Social Movements in the USA (Fall 2007; Prof. Robin Kelley) and American Studies 101: Race and Class in Los Angeles (Spring 2008; Prof. Sarah Gualtieri).

– Argument and Analysis for Earthlings and Others, a composition class based on science fiction texts and their reflection of contemporary social and political issues. Taught in affiliation with Philosophy 137: Social Ethics for Earthlings and Others (Fall 2008; Prof. Sharon Lloyd).

Guest Lectures
“Katharine Burdekin’s Proud Man.” Lecture on the 1933 novel’s use of science fiction strategies to theorize about gendered futures for Communication 620: Science Fiction as Media Theory, USC. (Prof. Henry Jenkins). August 31 2011.

“Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas.” Lecture on the content, style and context of Woolf’s essay for CORE 102: Culture and Values: Authority, Love, and Rebellion, USC. (Prof. William Handley). November 17 2010.

“Fannish Vidding.” Lecture on the history and practice of fan video and its engagement with feminism for Communication 620, Fandom and Participatory Culture, USC. (Prof. Henry Jenkins). March 1 2010.

“Popular Culture and Classic Poetry: Watchmen’s ‘Ozymandias.’” Lecture on literary presences in contemporary media for English 2, Critical Analysis and Intermediate Composition, Santa Monica Community College. (Prof. Dana Del George). October 27 2009. Available to view online.

“Happy Families / Queer Utopias.” Lecture on queer activism and utopianism for Gender Studies 210, Social Issues in Gender, USC. (Prof. Judith Halberstam). April 28 2009.

“Re-Making Media: Fan Culture.” Lecture on fan cultural production and academic fan studies for Communication 384: Interpreting Popular Culture, USC. (Laura Portwood-Stacer). First given October 13 2008; updated version given April 6 2011.

“New Media and Fan Participation: Vidding.” Lecture on fans’ appropriative video art for Arts and Letters 100: Fan Obsession, Imitation and Expertise in Literature and Culture, USC. (Prof. Karen Tongson). First given November 13 2008; updated version given January 19 2011.

Invited Talks
“Futures Without Closure: Queer Fandom and the Reconfiguration of Media Time.” Invited speaker at Queer Studies and the Future: Midwestern Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 24-25 February, 2012.

“Life After Television: Fan Video Remix and the Reconfiguration of Media Time.” Backward Glances: Media, Perversion, Historiography. Symposium at Northwestern University. 11-12 November, 2011.

“Remixing Pop Culture: Subverting Gender and Sexuality with Remix Videos.” With Julie Levin Russo and Jonathan McIntosh, curated a show of fan videos and lectured on vidding as part of a public event organized by Anita Sarkeesian (http://feministfrequency.com) at California State University, Northridge. March 25 2010.

“The Future Stops Here.” Presentation of a digital scholarly work in progress as part of USC English Department’s Table Talk lecture series. Panel moderated by Professor Alice Gambrell. April 17 2009.

Conference Presentations
Panelist. “Transformative Mediations: Queer and Ethnic Studies and the Politics of the Digital.” Roundtable at American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD. October 21-23, 2011.

“Borrowed Time: Critical Fandom and Queer Temporality through a Cylon Digital Remix Machine.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2011. University of California, Los Angeles. 14-15 October, 2011.

“The History of No Future: Reproductive Deviance and the Politics of Futurelessness in Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night.” No Future Conference, University of Durham. 25-27 March, 2011.

“The Future Stops Here: Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the Limits of Liberal Possibility.” Eaton Conference on Global Science Fiction. University of California, Riverside. 11-12 February, 2011.

“Women at the End of the World, 1936/2006: Feminism, Eugenics, and the Future of the (Human) Race.” Race and the Fantastic: 31st International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts. Orlando, Florida. 17-29 March, 2010.

“Vidding as Activist Critique” at panel “From Wikipedia to Vidding.” Digital Media and Learning Conference 2010. University of California, San Diego. February 19-20, 2010.

“An Archive of One’s Own: Ephemera, Legitimacy and Subcultural Memory Online.” PCA/ACA National Conference 2009. New Orleans. April 8, 2009.

“Living in a Den of Thieves: Fan Video and Digital Challenges to Ownership.” Translating Media. Critical Studies / Interactive Media Arts and Practice Conference, University of Southern California. April 4, 2009.

“Doing Boys Like They’re Girls, and Other (Trans)Gendered Subjects: the Queer Subcultural Politics of ‘Genderfuck’ Fan Fiction.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2008. University of California, Los Angeles. 10-11 October, 2008.

“Utopia, Fiction and Fandom: Conflict, Community, and ‘Queer Female Space’.” WisCon 32. Madison, Wisconsin. 23-26 May, 2008.

“Televisual Transformation and its Discontents: Slash Fan Fiction, ‘Queer Female Space,’ and Race.” Console-ing Passions, UC Santa Barbara, 24-26 April, 2008.

“ ‘Queer Female Space’ and Erotic Sociability: Textual Encounters in Online Fan Culture.” LA Queer Studies Conference 2007. University of California, Los Angeles. 19-20 October, 2007.

“(Im)possible Futures: Queer of Color Critique and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” (dis)junctions 2007: Malappropriation Nation. University of California, Riverside. 6-7 April 2007.

“Queer World Building in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Representing Self and Other: Gender in the Fantastic. 28th International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 14-18 March 2007.

“Queering Dhalgren: Space, Time and the Incoherent City.” Samuel R. Delany: a Critical Symposium. State University of New York at Buffalo. 23 March 2006.

Other Conference Participation
Seminar participant. “On Speculation: Fiction, Finance, and Futurity.” Cultural Studies Association. University of California, San Diego. March 28-April 1, 2012.

Workshop participant. “Getting Started in Digital Humanities.” Modern Language Association Convention. Seattle, WA. January 2012.

HASTAC Social Media Team. Digital Media and Learning Conference 2011. Long Beach, California. March 3-5 2011.

Participant, THATCamp SoCal. Technology and the Humanities Unconference. Chapman University. January 11-12, 2011.

Creative Multimedia Work
“The Future Stops Here.” Remix of Children of Men, 28 Days Later, and V for Vendetta. 2008.

Screened at the academic conference Cyber Echoes: Fan Fiction and Sexualities,  February 11-13, 2010 in Umeå, Sweden; curated online at Political Remix Video blog
(http://www.politicalremixvideo.com/) in March, 2009; screened and discussed at the Chicago fan convention VividCon in August 2008.

“Sons and Daughters.” Remix of Battlestar: Galactica. 2009.
Screened and discussed at the Cardiff fan convention VidUKon in April 2011.

Cylon Vidding Machine, “The Enemy Within” Collaborative remix of Battlestar: Galactica. 2009. Screened and discussed at the public event “Remixing Pop Culture” in Northridge, California in March 2010 and at the Cardiff fan convention VidUKon in April 2011.

“Metal Heart.” Remix of Battlestar: Galactica. 2011.
Screened at the Madison, Wisconsin feminist science fiction convention WisCon, May 2011.

Professional Service
Jury Member, 2009 James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award. Established in 1991, the Tiptree Award honors speculative fiction that explores and challenges ideas about gender.

Symposium Editor, Transformative Works and Cultures. Part of founding editorial team for peer-reviewed online journal in media and fan studies: journal.transformativeworks.org. 2008-2010.

Member of Editorial Team. Studies in Social and Political Thought. University of Sussex. 2003-5. Evaluated gender studies submissions and edited copy for this interdisciplinary postgraduate-oriented, peer-reviewed journal.

Professional Memberships: Modern Language Association; American Studies Association; Society for Cinema and Media Studies; International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts; Science Fiction Research Association.

Departmental Service
Official Mentor to Incoming USC English Graduate Students, 2010 and 2011.

Graduate Student Member of 2010 PhD Admissions Committee. English Department, University of Southern California.

Moderator, University of Southern California Association of English Graduate Students Email List. 2008-present.

Co-chair, Getting Excessive: Culture and Excess. Annual Conference of the Association of English Graduate Students, University of Southern California. 28-29 March, 2008.

Committee Member, Association of English Graduate Students. University of Southern California. 2007-8.

Other Relevant Employment
Research Assistant to Professor Tania Modleski. University of Southern California. 2006-7.

Editor, thexperience Magazine Issue 3. University of Luton/Axon Publishing, London. 2006. Edited magazine for undergraduate applicants to the University of Luton.

Support Worker. University of Sussex. 2003-5. Provided academic and social support for students with disabilities.