This fall, we welcome our newest Area Chairs in our “Area Chair Spotlight” series!
Meet Andrew, professor of Computer Science & Information Systems at Minnesota State University Moorhead, whose new area in AI & Culture debuted at Summer Salon!
📍 How did you first become involved with SWPACA, and what drew you to take on a leadership role as an Area Chair?
In late 2003, I had started blogging. I believed in the value and potential of independent bloggers to expand all manner of discourse in directions potentially beneficial to humanity, or something like that. I shared my view with some acquaintances, and one of them shared with me a special CFP about blogging within the Computer Culture area for the 2004 annual conference back then. I attended, presented, and have been back nearly every year since (with a break around the pandemic for reasons you can guess).
For some number of years I served as area chair of the then Computer Culture area because it was suggested to me by one of the co-chairs of it (Joe Chaney). I stepped down in 2014 due to a flood of additional responsibilities in my life (new baby, starting my first term as department chair, and more). I was pleased with how I passed on the role via invitation to a longtime attendee within the area (Natasha Chuk).
Being familiar with the role of Area Chair, it occurred to me, as I contemplated how best to have humanity address the issues that AI poses, that a forum for discussion of such would be good–a forum such as an area within SWPACA. Hence, the idea for the area was born and I proposed it, and it was fortunately accepted. I am serving as an Area Chair for this area because that seemed natural given that I proposed the existence of this area.
📍 What excites you most about AI & Culture and its place within the broader field of popular/American culture studies right now? What are your goals or hopes for your Area?
There’s a lot of talk about AI nowadays, but much of it falls into extremes of embrace, rejection, or inevitably. There’s not a lot of good places to have thoughtful discussions, in-depth, with an open mind, about the wide range of nuance between those extremes, while still being conscious of how everything is a moving target. I wanted to help make a safe space for people in the middle to share views on the topic of AI, free from the usual extremist polemics found elsewhere. I especially cared that this was in-person.
Since “if it is popular, it is culture” and since it is popular to talk about AI, I thought it suitable to have a place for talking about AI at this conference. Blogging led to microblogging led to social media led to eventually just being part of everything in terms of discussions of, for example, any sort of contemporary fan studies regardless of theoretical framework. So too, I imagine that if/when AI “just becomes part of everything” then the need for this area will become vastly reduced. Everything has its place in history and this is no exception.
📍 How does your own research or teaching intersect with the themes of your area?
Teaching: I have been changing pedagogy every semester since the pandemic. Much of that has been due to AI. Chief amongst what has driven me is to try to figure out what the “right relationship with technology” should be and how to model and encourage that.
Research: I haven’t done much research in my home discipline of Computer Science during the past few decades due to being (by choice) at a primarily teaching institution, but given the potential existential risk associated with this relatively sudden rise of AI in the form of generative AI, I thought that I should bring all the tools I had to bear on the problem. The result would take more words than would be reasonable to try to place here.
📍 If you could organize a dream SWPACA panel, what would the topic be?
Due to chaos theory and the butterfly effect, I dare not say this for fear of potential unintended consequences.
📢 Join Andrew and the AI & Culture Area at SWPACA 2026! Submit your proposal today at swpaca.org!
