Sam Hunter, Ph.D. Candidate in Cinema & Media Studies, UCLA

I’ve been enrolled in UCLA’s Cinema & Media Studies graduate program with a concentration in gender studies since 2019 after completing my B.A. (Creative Writing/Literature) and M.A. (Literature) at Miami University (Ohio). My research interests broadly include queer media culture, the Internet/digital media, and critiques of political economy. I also teach film and television history, media theory, queer theory, gender & sexuality studies, and media pedagogy.

My dissertation-in-progress scans the queer Internet from the early 1990s to the present for coincidences of utopian articulations and capital accumulation. I aim to show how utopian thinking about computation and digital networks animated activist, corporate, and scholarly activities during a period directly leading to the present moment. I also write about film, television, and other forms of digital media.

I also serve as a Co-Chair of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Precarious Labor Organization.