About

I’m a PhD student at UCSB with interests spanning the digital humanities, media theory, STS, and speculative fiction. More particularly, my research focuses on the emerging paradigm of critical infrastructure studies and how the concept of “infrastructure” provokes us to revise, re-affirm, or recant now canonical media theoretical concepts. A few topics that keep me up at night: thinking of remediation in relation to overlapping media infrastructures, considering the merits of multiple conceptual metaphors for understanding intermedial relations (ecologies, spheres, infrastructures, networks, platforms, systems, etc.), the relationship between Marxist and “new” materialisms, the co-existence (and perhaps symbiosis) of traditional literary academic infrastructures within and alongside DH infrastructures, and more. In addition to research, I spend my time teaching, learning programming, and (retro)gaming.

I can be reached via email (rkleach@ucsb.edu) or merely “followed” via twitter (@ryankleach).