Hey folks!
My name is Andy Fischer Wright, and I am a new HASTAC scholar. I’m in my first year of a doctoral program in Radio-Television-Film at UT Austin, and I use he/him/his pronouns. My background is in critical media studies/ cultural studies scholarship and consulting work with writing centers, though I’ve recently written on everything from Lime scooters to Apple Watch notifications to the power of premium beer glassware to reinforce racist colonial ideology (for this last one, catch me at SCMS!) At the core of my scholarship is a deep-seated discomfort with the role that ubiquitous information technology plays in daily life, especially trends toward positivism and the societal inequality that this seems to inherently produce.
Because I am in an early stage in my program, I have the ability to take on projects that are more broadly focused than a dissertation project might be. This flexibility comes with a tendency for interdisciplinary work, which my master’s thesis on the sociocultural effects of push notifications embodied (reach out if you want the details!) I’ve also had the chance recently to pursue the topic of surveillance in my research, looking specifically at smart city technology. I am pointedly interested in any work that is being done about surveillance technology in education spaces right now, and would love to connect or collaborate with anyone who has similar interests.
I’m looking forward to learning with y’all, and always happy to meet new folks!
Cheers,
Andy (@RevAndrewWright)
(P.S. Apologies for brevity and the late date- turns out I needed a nearly full week to recover after this semester of course-work!)