About

I'm a cultural critic, essayist, and the author of four books: Escape Velocity, a critique of the libertarian-bro ideology that dominated the Digital Revolution of the '90s; two studies of American mythologies (and pathologies) The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink and the essay collection I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, and, most recently, the biography Born To Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey.

I've taught journalism at NYU and "dark aesthetics" at the Yale School of Art; been a Chancellor's Distinguished Fellow at UC Irvine, a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome, and a Poynter Journalism Fellow at Yale. My byline has appeared in a broad range of publications, including New York, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Elle, Bookforum, Boing Boing, Cabinet, The Daily Beast, Hyperallergic, Salon, Wired, The Washington Post, and The LA Review of Books.

I popularized the concept of "culture jamming" and, in my 1993 essay, "Black to the Future” (in the academic anthology of cybercriticism, Flame Wars, which I edited), coined the term "Afrofuturism.”

Other Works