I am a Professor of Rhetoric and Communications at The University of Winnipeg.
My newest book, The Hysterical Sublime: Humanism in the Age of Posthuman Capitalism (Bloomsbury 2025), aims to rethink universal and dialectical humanism as concept for grappling with twenty-first century capitalism. It develops the concept of the hysterical sublime, first theorized by Fredric Jameson, to challenge posthumanist perspectives on the Anthropocene. The theory of universal and dialectical humanism defended also challenges older historicists versions of Marxist humanism, arguing that alienation must be seen as a constitutive, rather than contingent, dimension of human subjectivity.
My previous book, Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (Northwestern UP 2021), uses the concept of social media as a metaphor for interpreting the dominant ideology and consciousness of contemporary neoliberal capitalism.
My other previous books include Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (Bloomsbury 2017) and The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (Palgrave 2012). I am also the co-editor of Žižek and Media Studies: A Reader (Palgrave Macmillan 2014).
I have a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Communication and Culture from York University and Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), and a B.A. Honours Double Major in Fine Arts Cultural Studies and Communication Studies from York. I was previously an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Core Disciplinary/Theoretical Fields
- Communication and Media Theory
- Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, and Ideology Criticism
- Marxist Theory and the History of Marxist Thought
- Psychoanalysis, Dialectical Theory, and Continental Philosophy
- Rhetoric, Narrative, Ethics, and Aesthetic Theory
- Visual and Popular Culture
Major Areas of Research and Teaching
- Modernism, Postmodernism, and Contemporary Culture
- Humanism, Posthumanism, and New Materialisms
- Digital Culture and Algorithmic New Media
- Neoliberalism and Contemporary Capitalism
- The Ljubljana School of Theoretical Psychoanalysis
- Zionism, Jewish Political Thought, and Antisemitism
- Nationalism, Settler Colonialism, and Political Ideology
