DEVIN PROCTOR

Curriculum Vitae

Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Elon University, 2035 Campus Box, Elon, NC, 27244

dproctor2@elon.edu  |  devinproctor.com

 

PRESENT APPOINTMENT

 

Elon University

          Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Sociology & Anthropology Department

 

EDUCATION

 

George Washington University

          PhD in Anthropology

          MA in Anthropology

          MA in American Studies

 

City University of New York: The City College

          MS in Education

 

New York University

          BFA dbl. maj. in Theatre & Sociology

 

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS                

 

Elon University

2020-present  Assistant Professor, Sociology & Anthropology Dept.

 

Georgetown University

2020              Adjunct Lecturer, Anthropology Dept.

 

George Washington University

2020              Professorial Lecturer, Anthropology Dept

2019              Lecturer, Columbian College of Arts and Science

2017-2018     Instructor of Record, Anthropology Dept.

2012-2013     Adjunct Assistant Professor, GWU Writing Program

 

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

 

cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, digital anthropology, media anthropology, science and technology studies, Internet collectives and fandoms, media studies, identity, space & place, embodiment, animism, videogame studies, ethnographic methods, epistemological frameworks 

 

 

PUBLICATIONS

 

Book

 

(under contract).  The Spectrum of Virtuality, at Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Press, as part of their Studies in New Media series

 

Edited Volume

 

(under contract).   Editor, Practicing Digital Ethnography, at Routledge

 

Selected Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

 

2023. "The #Tradwife Persona and the Rise of Radicalized White Domesticity,” Persona Studies, 8(2), pp. 7-26: https://doi.org/10.21153/psj2022vol8no2art1645  

 

2020. “The Social Production of Internet Space: Affordance, Programming, and Virtuality” Communication Theory, qtz036, https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtz036

 

Translated into Arabic: 2021. Amin, Djenih. “ا الإنتاج الاجتماعي لفضاء الإنترنت: الإمكان والبرمجة والافتراضية,” Al-Rased Al-Alamy Magazine, Oran 1 University, Algeria

 

2019. “Wandering in the City: Time, Memory, and Experience in Digital Game Space” M/C Journal 22(4): http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1549

 

2018. “Policing the Fluff: The Social Construction of Scientistic Selves in Otherkin Facebook Groups,” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, 4 (2018), pp. 485-514: https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/252/166

 

Peer-Reviewed Proceedings

 

2021. “Cybernetics and Digital Whiteness: Exposure to Radicalization through Feedback Loops,” Proceedings of the IEEE Conference, Norbert Weiner in the 21st Century, Chenai, India, 2021

 

Book Chapter

 

2018. “Cybernetic Animism: Non-Human Personhood and the Internet,” in Digital Existence: Ontology, Ethics and Transcendence in Digital Culture, ed. Amanda Lagerkvist. London: Routledge, pp. 227-241.

 

Media and Public Scholarship

 

2022. “What is Cultural Anthropology?” At SAPIENS September 27: 

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/what-is-cultural-anthropology/  

 

2021. “Care by Emoji” with Tariq Adely. Anthropology News, June 25:

https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/care-by-emoji/

 

2020. “So You Want to ‘Do’ Digital Ethnography.” At The Geek Anthropologist, March 25:

https://thegeekanthropologist.com/2020/03/25/so-you-want-to-do-digital-ethnography/

 

2019. “Devin Proctor’s page 99 test.” At CaMP Anthropology, edited by Ilana Gershon. July 29: https://campanthropology.org/2019/07/29/devin-proctor-page-99-test/

 

2015-present. Writing and maintaining Anthropolojamz research and theory blog: https://anthropolojamz.wordpress.com

 

Book Reviews

 

2017. Haraway, Donna. 2016, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham: Duke University Press. Anthropological Quarterly, 90(3), pp. 877-882.

 

2015. Kirkpatrick, Graeme. 2013. Computer Games and the Social Imaginary. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Anthropological Quarterly, 87(4), pp. 199-204.

 

Other Published Works

 

2019. “Intertextuality” and “Integrated Circuit” in The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society, eds. Debra Merskin and J. Geoffrey Golson. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

 

2013. “The Anthropological Study of Game and Ritual,” Introduction to Outlining Magic Circles: Jessie Bancroft’s Games for the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium, Washington DC: Westphalia Press, pp. i-x.

 

Works in Progress

 

Book—Open Bodies: On Being Non-Human in Virtual Space, manuscript under post peer-review edits at a university press

  

Videogame—ANTHROPOLOGY!!, a roleplaying game with an early 2000s aesthetic that introduces players to the major theorists, theories, and methods of sociocultural anthropology

 

 

TEACHING 

 

As Professor

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology of the Internet

Exploring Virtual Space

The Global Experience

 

As Adjunct Professor/ Instructor of Record

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Love & Hate in the Digital Age

Youth and Technology

Anthropology Research Practicum

Contemporary Anthropological Theory: Keywords in Digital Anthropology

(co-designed and taught with Joel Kuipers)

Writing About Video Games: Fictions and Critiques of Virtual Worlds

The Road Trip in American Film and Literature

           

As Graduate Teaching Assistant

Foundations of Anthropological Thought, with Stephen Lubkemann 

Media, Technology, & Performance, with Alexander Dent

Language in Culture & Society, with Alexander Dent

Sociocultural Anthropology, with Sarah Wagner

                                                                                                                       

 

GRANTS & AWARDS

 

2023:   Elon University Center for Writing Excellence A.I. Engagement Grant, $1,000

 

2022:   National Science Foundation (NSF), Memorialization, Contested Knowledge, and Incomplete Mourning in the Context of COVID-19, $350,415—3 years (Research Consultant)

 

2022:   Elon University Faculty Research & Development Hultquist Summer Fellowship, $2,000

 

2021:   Cornell Center for Social Sciences research grant, Cornell University (Co-PI, $10,580, co-written with Chloe Ahmann [PI]), After Apocalypse: The Work of Utopia in White Power Activism

 

2021:   Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics research grant, George Washington University, (Research Consultant, $12,000, co-written with Richard Grinker [PI], Joel Kuipers, Mark Edberg, and Brandon Kohrt), Death in the Time of Misinformation

 

2021:   Elon Summer Research Funding ($4,800)

 

2020:   The National Science Foundation RAPID Response grant (Co-PI, $97,509, co-written with Sarah Wagner [PI], Joel Kuipers, Roy Richard Grinker, and Jorge Benavides-Rawson) Funerary Practices, Pandemic Confinement, and the Implications for COVID-19 Transmission

 

2013-2018:  University Fellowships, George Washington University ($22,500/year)

 

2013-2016:  Departmental Travel Grants, Anthropology Dept, GWU         

 

2015:   Policy Studies Organization Education Fellowship ($7,500)

 

2014:   Jane B. Hart Endowment for Anthropology

 

2014:   Lewis N. Cotlow Research Fund ($1,500)

 

2012:   Michael Scheonecke Travel Grant, American Culture Association

 

2012:   Conference Travel Grant for Graduate Students, GWU    

       

2005, 2008:   AmeriCorps Education Grant ($5,000 each)

 

1998-2002:    Tisch Trustee Scholarship, NYU ($10,000/year)

 

 

PAPERS, PRESENTATIONS, AND LECTURES

 

 

Invited Talks & Workshops

 

2022. “Indexing Racialized Bodies in the Animist Internet,” Nature Religions, Science and Technology Conference, University of Groningen, Netherlands (virtual)

 

2022. “Recognizing Racist Extremism Online,” 12th Annual INTERSECT Conference: Elon University’s Leadership & Diversity Conference, Elon, NC, November 11-12.

 

2021. “Digital Ethnography as a Method of Study and Practice,” George Washington University. (virtual)

 

2020. “Open Bodies and Virtual Space,” Elon University.

 

2019. “Approaching Gender as a Social Construct,” Kenyon College. (virtual)

 

2019. “Other-Than-Humanness and the Open Body,” The Freedom of Form Foundation: https://freedomofform.org. (virtal)

 

 

Conference Papers

 

2023:  “Reading for the Revolution: Notes on a Fascist Library,” with Chloe Ahmann, 122nd American Anthropological Association/ Canadian Anthropology Society Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, November 15-19. (virtual)

 

2022. “Hashtagging into Extremism: Tradlives, Tradwives, and the Rise of Radicalized Domesticity,” with Ashley Kinder, 121st American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, November 9-13. (virtual) 

 

2021. “Vernaculars of Mourning: Memorialization in Collapsed Digital Contexts,” 120th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, November 17-21. (virtual)

 

2021. “Cybernetics and Digital Whiteness: Exposure to Radicalization through Feedback Loops,” 2021 IEEE Conference, Norbert Weiner in the 21st Century (21CW), Anna University, Chenai, India, July 22-25. (virtual)

 

2020. “Digital Whiteness: The Construction of Body-Identity in Supremacist Internet Spaces,” Recognition and Repair Symposium, George Washington University, Washington, DC, April 10. (cancelled)

 

2018. Roundtable: “Breakdown, repair, resilience and adaptation at the Dawn of the Anthropocene,” with Alexander Dent, Joel Kuipers, Katelyn Schoenike, Gretchen Bakke, Kim Fortun, 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA, November 14-18.

 

2018. “Tumblr-kin: Identity and Technology on the Periphery,” Social Movements and Community Action: the 15th Annual Public Anthropology Conference, American University, Washington, DC, October 27.

 

2017. “Non-human Personhood in the Internet,” Entanglements Symposium, George Washington University, Washington, DC, March 3.

 

2016. “Of Bots and Dragons: Animist Internet Practice,” 115th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, November 16-20.

 

2016. “Cybernetic Animism,” STGlobal Consortium, Washington, DC, April 8-9.

 

2016. “Non-Human Logics: The Creation of Otherkin Scientific Knowledge,” American Ethnological Society Spring Conference, Washington, DC, March 31-April 2.

 

2015. “Networking Boundaries: Facebook Practice and Otherkin Identity,” 114th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, November 17-22.

 

2015. “Multiple Systems: Dissociative Disorders, Healthy Multiplicity, and Otherkin Ontology,” Disclosures: Meaning and Materiality Across Spaces, George Washington University, Washington DC, March 20.

 

2014. “On Being Non-Human: Technologically Mediated Identity Among the Otherkin,” 113th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, December 2-7.

 

2014. “Policing the Fluff: Online Authenticity Among the Otherkin,” Lewis N. Cotlow Anthropology Student Research Conference, George Washington University, Washington, DC, October 17.

 

2014. “War Games, Game Wars: Dismembering / Remembering Conflict through Historical First-Person Shooters," Policies and Procedures: A Symposium of Policy as Located Practice, George Washington University, Washington, DC, March 21.

 

2013. “Burning the Apple Tree: American Revolutionary Mythology Rewritten in The Tyranny of King Washington," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, November 1-3.

 

2013. “Encoding, Decoding, & Recoding: Cultural Production and the Videogame Modding Economy,” Graduate Conference, At the Mercy of the Masses?—Popular Culture and Academia, University of Maryland, College Park, April 12-13.

 

2013. “Pimp my Nord: Game Modding as Negotiated Resistance in Skyrim,” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Washington DC, March 27-30.

 

2012. “The Practice of Everyday Gaming: Strategies, Tactics, and Exploits,” 27th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities: Systems of Control/ Modes of Resistance, University of West Georgia, November 1-3.

 

2012. “Subversion in the Digital City: A Game of Control,” Critiquing Culture: The Cultural Studies Graduate Conference, George Mason University, September 21-22.

 

2012. “Not Elf, Not Not Elf: Ritual and Mimesis in the Videogame Space of Oblivion,” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Boston, April 11-14.

 

Other Conference Activities

 

2018. Chair, “Political (Re)actions” panel, Ruptures Reactions Reconfigurations Symposium, George Washington University, Washington, DC, March 30.

 

2017. Director, Webpage and Social Media Committee, STGlobal Consortium Conference, Washington, DC March 24-25.

 

2016. Chair, “Non-Human Agents” panel, American Ethnological Society Spring Conference, Washington, DC, March 31-April 2.

 

2012. Moderator, “Power and Resistance in Urban Space” panel, 27th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities: Systems of Control/ Modes of Resistance, University of West Georgia, November 1-3.

 

2011. Panelist, “Diversity Among Tutoring Staff,” National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Florida International University, November 5.

 

2011. Panelist, “Beyond the Training Course: Ongoing Professional Development for Tutors,” National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Florida International University, November 6.

 

 

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

 

American Anthropological Association

American Ethnological Society

Society for Cultural Anthropology

Association of Internet Researchers

Society of Linguistic Anthropology

Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

American Federation of Teachers

United Federation of Teachers

 

 

NON-COLLEGIATE TEACHING EXPERIENCE

 

2004-2011      High School Teacher, New York City Dept. of Education

                        Foreign Language Academy of Global Studies, Bronx, NY     

 

Courses Taught:

2004-2011       “Youth and Conflict in Literature”       

2006-2011       “History of Popular American Music”              

2006-2011       “Shakespeare and the Critical Lens”

2006-2011       “Health and Sexuality”

2004-2006       “Foundations of Democracy and American Culture”  

2004-2006       “Math”

 

 

NON-ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE

 

2012-2014       Director of Media and Publications                 

                        Policy Studies Organization