PhD, Florida
MA, Windsor
MA, Ottawa
BA, Windsor
Extension: 42946
Email: marcel@uwaterloo.ca
Biography
Dr. Marcel O’Gorman is a University Research Chair, Professor of English, and Founding Director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), where he teaches courses, leads collaborative projects, and directs workshops that combine research/creation and critical media studies.
O’Gorman has published widely about the impacts of technology, including his books E-Crit and Necromedia and articles in Slate, The Atlantic, and The Globe and Mail. He is also a digital artist with an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances. This experience guides the creative hands-on methods espoused by the Critical Media Lab and outlined in detail in his most recent book Making Media Theory: Thinking Critically with Technology. O’Gorman’s most recent research looks at how critical and inclusive design methods might help tackle some of the ethical and environmental issues faced by contemporary technoculture.
Selected publications
Monographs
Making Media Theory: Thinking Critically with Technology. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020.
Necromedia. University of Minnesota Press (Posthumanities Series), 2015.
E-Crit: Digital Media, Critical Theory and the Humanities. University of Toronto Press, 2005.
Recent Articles (academic and popular press)
"Adopt or Adapt: The AI Ultimatum," The Globe and Mail. May 10, 2025.
“Sociotechnical Context Mapping for Responsible Innovation Pedagogy and Ethical Design,” with Heather Love, Chris Rogers, Rebecca Sherlock, Sarah Casey. IEEE Ethics, May 2025.
“Fostering Responsible Innovation with Critical Design methods,” with Alexi Orchard. Journal of Responsible Innovation, February 16, 2023.
“Paying Attention to Biodiversity Apps,” The Globe and Mail. June 22, 2024.
“Revisiting the Pharmakon: Why Media Theory Needs Queer Theory.” Media Theory, December 19, 2022.
Recent Art, Design, Curation
“Nestcraft,” Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery, 2025
“Liminowlity,” Stauffer Gallery, Arizona State University, 2023
See additional work at: http://marcelogorman.net.
Fellowships & Awards
- 2025 - SSHRC Insight Grant: "Being in Relation: Ethical practice and artistic co-production in and with a more-than-human world” (Collaborator with Jane Tingley and Roberta Buiani)
- 2025 - SSHRC Connection Grant: “Anti-Racism and Social Justice through Technology Ethics: IEEE Ethics 2025.” (Collaborator with Heather Love)
- 2024 - University Research Chair (7 year term)
- 2022 - SSHRC Insight Grant: “Critical by Design: Fostering Responsible Innovation through Critical Design Methods.” (PI)
- 2022: SSHRC Insight Development Grant: “Nested Infrastructures: Species Decline Meets Critical Design.” (Co-PI with Jennifer Clary-Lemon)
- 2022 SSHRC Insight Development Grant: “Do Biodiversity Apps Facilitate Connection to Nature?: A Mixed Methods Study of iNaturalist.” (Collaborator with Brendon Larsen)
- 2018 - SSHRC Connection Grant: “Conference of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts” (Co-PI with David Cecchetto)
- 2017 - University Research Chair (7 year term)
- 2016 - SSHRC Insight Grant: “Digital Abstinence: The Art, Philosophy, and Politics of Unplugging.” (PI)
- 2016 - Canada Foundation for Innovation Grant: "Critical Prototyping Suite.” (PI)
Current research
My research always connects with the broad topic of technology and the human condition (or more-than-human condition, to be precise). Because my definition of “technology” is very capacious, I am engaged in multiple disciplines, theories and methodologies at any given time. For example, in a single year I co-published an IEEE article on Responsible Innovation, installed an art exhibition about artificial bird nests at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery, and guided students in the design of solar panel data visualizations. Currently, I am interested in places where technological infrastructure meets so-called “nature.” I am co-designing an art project about bird window collisions on this topic that brings together critical design, media theory, and citizen scientific activism. I am also writing a book about “velosophy,” a philosophical travelogue on the technology of cycling. My primary concept-to-think-with for the past few years has been technological adaptation, which has led me down the rabbit hole of AI governance in education
Areas of graduate supervision
- Critical Media Studies
- Philosophy of Technology
- Research/Creation Methods
- Digital Art and Design
- Science and Technology Studies
- Environmental Humanities
- Queer Theory
- New Materialism and Posthumanism
- Animal and “more-than-human” studies