Figure/Ground Interviews

The Figure/Ground series amounts to in-depth conversations with emerging and established university professors about various topics related to communication, education, technology and society. The aims are to showcase the career choices and research activities of key scholars, academics and intellectuals, and to gather their views on some of the challenges (classroom management, attention span, evolving notions of selfhood, changing conceptions of originality, the quest for authenticity, etc.) associated with an “age of interruption” characterized by fractured attention and information overload. In so doing, I hope to make a contribution to understanding the “changing nature” of academia and scholarship – particularly the role of the university professor and student-teacher relations – in an age of digital interactive media.

• Marco Adria - Associate Professor of Communication, University of Alberta
• David L. Altheide - Regents’ Professor in the School of Justice Studies, Arizona State University
• Ian Angus - Professor of Humanities, Simon Fraser University
• Corey Anton - Professor of Communication, Grand Valley State University
• Robert Babe - Professor in the Faculty of Media and Information Studies at the University of Western Ontario
• Susan B. Barnes - Professor in the College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Darin Barney - Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Communications, McGill University
• Mark Bevir - Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
• Ann Blair - Professor of History, Harvard University
• Pablo J. Boczkowski - Professor of Communication  studies, Northwestern University
• Ian Bogost - Professor of Computational Media, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Albert Borgmann - Professor of Philosophy, University of Montana
• Lee Braver - Professor of Philosophy, Hiram College
• Adam Briggle – Asistant Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas
• Levi R. Bryant - Professor of Philosophy, Collin College
• Elizabeth Buchanan – Director, Center for Applied Ethics, University of Wisconsin-Stout
• Taylor Carman - Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
• David Cerbone - Professor of Philosophy, West Virginia University
• Noam Chomsky  - Professor of Linguistics, MIT - REPRINTED IN SPANISH
• Steven Crowell - Professor of Philosophy, Rice University
• James M. Curtis - Professor Emeritus of Russian from the University of Missouri
• Elizabeth Eisenstein - Retired Professor, American University
• Charles M. Ess – Professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University – REPRINTED IN PORTUGUESE
• Peter K. Fallon - Assistant Professor of Journalism, Roosevelt University
• Andrew Feenberg - Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, Simon Fraser University
• Luciano Floridi - Professor of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire
• Christopher Fynsk - Professor of Philosophy, EGS
• Kenneth J. Gergen - Professor of Psychology,  Swarthmore College
• W. Terrence Gordon - Professor Emeritus, Dalhousie University
• Gordon Gow - Associate Professor, University of Alberta
• Bruce Gronbeck - Professor (Emeritus) of Public Address, Television and Politics, Rhetoric and Media Studies, University of Iowa.
• Peter Haratonik – Media Studies Chair and Associate Professor at The New School
• Graham Harman - Associate Professor of Philosophy, The American University in Cairo
• Karsten Harris - Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
• N. Katherine Hayles - Professor of Literature, Duke University
• Michael Heim – Lecturer, University of California, Irvine.
• Paul Heyer - Professor of Communication, Wilfrid Laurier University
• R. Kevin Hill - Professor of Philosophy, Portland State University
• Don Ihde - Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Mark L. Johnson -  Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Oregon
• Jannis Kallinikos - Professor of Information Studies, London School of Economics
• Paul Levinson - Professor of communications and media studies, Fordham University
• Robert K. Logan - Professor emeritus, University of Toronto
• Casey Lum - Professor of Communication, William Paterson University – REPRINTED IN CHINESE
• Frank Macke – Professor of Communication, Mercer University
• Brenton Malin - Associate Professor of Communication, University of Pittsburgh
• Jeff Malpas - Professor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania
• Robin Mansell - Professor of New Media, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Philip Marchand - Books columnist for the Toronto Star
• Timothy Morton - Professor of English, UCDavis
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat - Retired Professor of Art and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
• Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger - Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford University
• Eric McLuhan - University of Toronto - REPRINTED IN JAPANESE
• Carl Mitcham - Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of Mines
• Dermot Moran - Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin
• Roman Onufrijchuk - Senior lecturer in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
• Richard Osicki - Director of The Marshall McLuhan Initiative at St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba
• Joseph Pitt - Editor-in-Chief of Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
• B. W. Powe - Professor of English, York University
• Henry J. Perkinson - Retired Professor, NYU
• Ellen Rose - Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of New Brunswick
• Douglas Rushkoff - Professor of Media Studies, NYU and New School University
• Calvin O. Schrag - Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University
• Read Schuchardt - Associate Professor of Communication, Wheaton College
• Evan Selinger - Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Leslie Shade – Associate Professor of Communication studies, Concordia University
• Marshall Soules - Retired Professor, Vancouver Island University
• Nick Srnicek – PhD candidate, London School of Economics
• Peter Steeves - Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University
• Robert Stolorow - Founding Faculty Member, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles.
• Lance Strate - Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University
• Lee Thayer - Retired Professor, University of Wisconsin
• Iain Thomson - Professor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico
• Julian Young - Professor of Philosophy, Forest Wake University
• Dan Zahavi - Professor in the Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, University of Copenhage