From Panther to Monster: Black Popular Culture Representations of Resistance from the Black Power Movement of the 1960s to the Boyz in the Hood,

Published in Elaine Richards & Ronald Jackson, Innovations in African-American Rhetoric, (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

A meditation on the journey of the "Panther brand" from its Marxist revolutionary roots to its current position as style icon for radical chic.

That Just Kills Me: Black Militant Near Futurist Fiction

Published in Social Text (Summer 2002).

Survey of black militant near futurist fiction, explicating conventions of the genre.

‘It’s a Beastly Rough Crowd I Run With’: Theory and the ‘New University

Published in Day Late, Dollar Short: The Next Generation and the New Academy, ed. Peter C. Herman (New York: State University of New York Press) 2000.

A meditation on the intersection between literary theory, cultural studies, and the corporatization of the university, with specific details on the author's experience at the Arizona International College, a now-defunct non-tenure college of The University of Arizona.

Room Full of Mirrors: Virtual Tourism and First World Technogaze

Co-authored with Eugene W. Lyman, III. Published in Artbyte (May/June 2000).

The problems posed by virtual tourism, with particular focus on the geographic metaphor of cyberspace, and the hierarchy or imaginaries.  The question is not whether "real" is better than "virtual," but on who does the imagining and whose story is replaced by the product of imagination.

Duppies in the Machine, or, "Anybody know where I can buy a copy of the UPNORTH-OUTWEST GEECHEE JIBARA QUIK MAGIC TRANCE MANUAL FOR TECHNOLOGICALLY STRESSED THIRD WORLD PEOPLE?"

Presented at the American Studies Association Annual Conference, Detroit, MI, October, 2000.

A tour of contemporary white cyberculture criticism and its vexed relation to race, with a particular focus on the theorization of John Lee's involvement in the MOD, the science fiction trope Rastas in Space, and the colonization of the black body as the site of white "hipnification."

Captive Audience: Telecoms in the Prisons

Originally published in WIRED Magazine, (October, 1997).

Article uncovering the exploitation of (literally) captive audiences, as telecoms gain contracts in the U.S. prison system.

Beyond the Screen: African-American Theory and Computer-Mediated Communication

Published in WIRED Magazine, (October, 1996).

An early essay on the usefulness of African American critical theory to the project of cyberculture criticism.

When History Talks Back: Inviting Vietnam Veterans into the Classroom

Published in The Vietnam War, ed. Marc Jason Gilbert (Stamford, CT: Greenwood Press) 1991.

On the rewards and dangers of inviting veterans as speakers in the college classroom.

The Self-Reflexive War: War Looking at Film Looking at War

Paper presented at the Thirteenth Annual Conference on Literature and Film, December 1987, Tampa, FL, and later published in revised form in Jump/Cut 36, Spring 1991.

An exploration of the influence of popular culture imagery on the decisions of American soldiers to go to war in Vietnam, its effect on their experience of war, and on the narratives produced about the war in its aftermath.

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone: Toward a Theory of Cultural Therapy

Published in Viet Nam Generation 1:1 (Winter 1989).

Popular culture reflects the unconscious decision of a society to represent or repress particular events and conditions. A culture's representations may provide the best map for those who are interested in studying its blind spots. The metaphor of the therapist is peculiarly suitable. A therapist notes his patient's delusions, but does not participate in them, will not be drawn into the conversation on the patient's terms. The mental health care worker who operates on the level of societies rather than individuals might properly be called a "cultural therapist."

The Mind at War: Images of Women in Vietnam Novels by Combat Veterans

Published in Contemporary Literature (Fall 1989).

A review of Vietnam combat literature, with a focus on representations of women. Texts covered include Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, William Eastlake's The Bamboo Bed, William Huggett's Body Count, James Webb's Fields of Fire, Larry Heinemann's Close Quarters, Donald McQuinn's Targets, Ken Miller's Tiger the Lurp Dog, John DelVecchio's The Thirteenth Valley, and Winston Groom's Better Times Than These.

A Review Essay on Lisa Nakamura's Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet

Available on the internet since 2001.

An in-depth review essay exploring the lacunae in Nakamura's book in particular, and in contemporary cyberculture studies in general. The first section of the review focuses on the strengths of Nakamura’s work, the second on its weaknesses, and the third upon problems in the wider fields of cyberculture studies and postmodernism.

Review of Julian Dibbell's My Tiny Life

Published by the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, February 1999.

Though its terrain is virtual, there is no mistaking Julian Dibbell's My Tiny Life (hereafter MTL) for anything except travel literature -- a genre overtly invoked by the book's subtitle: "Being a true account of the infamous Mr. Bungle and of the Author's journey, in consequence thereof, to the heart of a half-real world called LambdaMOO," and underlined by Cultural Studies scholar Andrew Ross, whose back cover blurb labels the book "a classic travelogue of virtual life." MTL is, first and foremost, a good read, an engrossing book that'll suck you in and hold your attention from start to finish, providing over three-hundred pages of vicarious thrills for cyber-adventurers of all sorts, from the techno-savvy to the clueless newbie. Travel literature, however, is not an unproblematic genre and a close look at Dibbell's work has led me to believe that there is less in it than meets the eye.

Review Essay: Wendy Harcourt (ed.), women@internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace

Published by Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, March 2001.