I'm THOMAS CONNER, a communication researcher and teacher — with a Ph.D. in Communication & Science Studies from UC San Diego — and currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa. I'm also a seasoned writer and experienced features journalist for more than 20 years, last seen as a cultural critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.
My scholarly research looks at people looking at technical imagery — how they make sense of what they see & how the technology itself shapes each interaction. I focus on (optical) holograms and (digital) “holograms,” which includes a broad swath of modern visual experience, from the Pepper’s Ghost stage illusion in Victorian London to the Tupac hologram at Coachella. I write about this historically, phenomenologically, and ethnographically in work that intersects with media studies, visual studies, cultural studies, performance, artificial intelligence, and materiality.
My current book project, Looking Through You: Digital Holograms and the New Technical Image, encompasses the historical and theoretical scope of my dissertation, "Learning to Live With Ghosts: Holopresence and the Historical Emergence of Real Virtuality Technologies" — plus two new studies. The overall work is a media-archaeological inquiry into emergences of holograms, broadly defined, in order to demonstrate how human interaction with a specific style of technical imagery may be seen as a social negotiation of inherent contradictions that haunt ideologies of modernity — tensions between presence and absence, body and spirit, life and death. That is, holograms look like ghosts, in some ways act like ghosts, and may even make us feel like we’re ghosts, too. They crystalize the essential ephemeral nature of media explored by scholars such as Jeffrey Sconce (Haunted Media), John Durham Peters, Friedrich Kittler, and — my primary guiding star — Vilém Flusser. My research unites seemingly disparate historical cases — the development of Pepper’s Ghost at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, the display of aesthetic holograms at the Museum of Holography, science-fiction imaginaries in Star Wars and Star Trek, and public perceptions of the Tupac hologram — plus fresh, new research examining the presentations of digital holograms of WWII genocide survivors at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and an evocative, immersive experience at Tulsa's Greenwood Rising museum. I find that encounters with holograms de-center and mobilize a viewing subject, who not only sees a spectral image but participates in a more direct experience of spectrality through a media phenomenon I call holopresence. Cavorting with holograms, in other words, surfaces the existing ghostliness of everyday modern experience.
Academic publications thus far include articles in the International Journal of Communication, Spectator (film studies), and the Journal of Science & Popular Culture, plus book chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality and a curated chapter in an important anthology of texts from the progressive organization Science for the People. My research has been presented at a wide range of conferences, from the usual acronyms (ICA, NCA, CSA, CAA, 4S, AoIR) to rich, intimate gatherings such as Realizing Resistance III, Theorizing the Web, and Viscom.
I am an experienced teacher, a leader in undergraduate classrooms since 1995, having amended my professional career as an adjunct instructor (in English, literature, journalism, and communication) for 12 years before serving as an associate instructor during my Ph.D. study. Having taught at an array of institutions — from liberal-arts and community colleges to R1 research universities — I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa, where I have taught Media History, Media Inquiry (methods), Media & Pop Culture, and two seminars of my own design (a theoretical investigation of American protest music, Music as Social Action, and a survey of Arts Criticism in America). Last fall, I assisted the department with a curriculum redesign, and this spring I'm teaching two of those new courses, crafted to offer additional practical journalism skills. After completing my Ph.D. in 2021 at UC San Diego, I taught as a lecturer there in both the Communication department (Introduction to Communication, Performance & Cultural Studies, a seminar of my own called Comm in the Wild!) and the Muir College Writing Program, a two-term course in academic argumentation.
The hologram research was borne from the tail-end of my 20-year career as a professional music and features journalist. As the pop-music columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, I witnessed a “live” concert by an early pioneer of digital hologram performance, the Japanese Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku, which became the basis for my master’s thesis at the Univ. of Illinois – Chicago. At the Sun-Times, I covered the breadth of popular music — from folk music to death metal, live concerts to album reviews, thoughtful features to breaking news — and was an editor of both print and online departments there and previously at the Tulsa World. My writing about music and culture has appeared additionally in The Washington Post, DownBeat magazine, This Land Press, and more.
A native Okie, I worked as a news reporter and copy editor throughout central Oklahoma in the early ’90s before writing about music in Tulsa for a decade (chronicling the rise of Hanson and the legacy of Leon Russell). In 2000-2001, I served a fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in New York, during which I conducted research at the Woody Guthrie Archives (now located in Tulsa). That work produced documents that remain part of the archives, as well as a foundation for much future journalism and the co-authoring a play with colleague John Wooley, “Time Changes Everything,” a two-act fantasy about two conversations between Guthrie and country bandleader Bob Wills. I’ve served on the advisory board of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival for many years, have been a featured presenter twice at the Woody Guthrie Symposium, and was the keynote speaker for the Woody Guthrie Center's inaugural Changing World Prize.
In 1999, I created, launched and produced the Spot Music Awards, an annual ceremony honoring local musicians and voted by readers of the Tulsa World. Once upon a time, I even recorded some music myself.
When various planets align, I write about music and technology on the blog here, Phenomenoscopy, and I once ran a blog about a personal passion: tea. I now live in Oklahoma City with my husband of 30 years and this furry monster.
My scholarly research looks at people looking at technical imagery — how they make sense of what they see & how the technology itself shapes each interaction. I focus on (optical) holograms and (digital) “holograms,” which includes a broad swath of modern visual experience, from the Pepper’s Ghost stage illusion in Victorian London to the Tupac hologram at Coachella. I write about this historically, phenomenologically, and ethnographically in work that intersects with media studies, visual studies, cultural studies, performance, artificial intelligence, and materiality.
My current book project, Looking Through You: Digital Holograms and the New Technical Image, encompasses the historical and theoretical scope of my dissertation, "Learning to Live With Ghosts: Holopresence and the Historical Emergence of Real Virtuality Technologies" — plus two new studies. The overall work is a media-archaeological inquiry into emergences of holograms, broadly defined, in order to demonstrate how human interaction with a specific style of technical imagery may be seen as a social negotiation of inherent contradictions that haunt ideologies of modernity — tensions between presence and absence, body and spirit, life and death. That is, holograms look like ghosts, in some ways act like ghosts, and may even make us feel like we’re ghosts, too. They crystalize the essential ephemeral nature of media explored by scholars such as Jeffrey Sconce (Haunted Media), John Durham Peters, Friedrich Kittler, and — my primary guiding star — Vilém Flusser. My research unites seemingly disparate historical cases — the development of Pepper’s Ghost at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, the display of aesthetic holograms at the Museum of Holography, science-fiction imaginaries in Star Wars and Star Trek, and public perceptions of the Tupac hologram — plus fresh, new research examining the presentations of digital holograms of WWII genocide survivors at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and an evocative, immersive experience at Tulsa's Greenwood Rising museum. I find that encounters with holograms de-center and mobilize a viewing subject, who not only sees a spectral image but participates in a more direct experience of spectrality through a media phenomenon I call holopresence. Cavorting with holograms, in other words, surfaces the existing ghostliness of everyday modern experience.
Academic publications thus far include articles in the International Journal of Communication, Spectator (film studies), and the Journal of Science & Popular Culture, plus book chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality and a curated chapter in an important anthology of texts from the progressive organization Science for the People. My research has been presented at a wide range of conferences, from the usual acronyms (ICA, NCA, CSA, CAA, 4S, AoIR) to rich, intimate gatherings such as Realizing Resistance III, Theorizing the Web, and Viscom.
I am an experienced teacher, a leader in undergraduate classrooms since 1995, having amended my professional career as an adjunct instructor (in English, literature, journalism, and communication) for 12 years before serving as an associate instructor during my Ph.D. study. Having taught at an array of institutions — from liberal-arts and community colleges to R1 research universities — I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa, where I have taught Media History, Media Inquiry (methods), Media & Pop Culture, and two seminars of my own design (a theoretical investigation of American protest music, Music as Social Action, and a survey of Arts Criticism in America). Last fall, I assisted the department with a curriculum redesign, and this spring I'm teaching two of those new courses, crafted to offer additional practical journalism skills. After completing my Ph.D. in 2021 at UC San Diego, I taught as a lecturer there in both the Communication department (Introduction to Communication, Performance & Cultural Studies, a seminar of my own called Comm in the Wild!) and the Muir College Writing Program, a two-term course in academic argumentation.
The hologram research was borne from the tail-end of my 20-year career as a professional music and features journalist. As the pop-music columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, I witnessed a “live” concert by an early pioneer of digital hologram performance, the Japanese Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku, which became the basis for my master’s thesis at the Univ. of Illinois – Chicago. At the Sun-Times, I covered the breadth of popular music — from folk music to death metal, live concerts to album reviews, thoughtful features to breaking news — and was an editor of both print and online departments there and previously at the Tulsa World. My writing about music and culture has appeared additionally in The Washington Post, DownBeat magazine, This Land Press, and more.
A native Okie, I worked as a news reporter and copy editor throughout central Oklahoma in the early ’90s before writing about music in Tulsa for a decade (chronicling the rise of Hanson and the legacy of Leon Russell). In 2000-2001, I served a fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in New York, during which I conducted research at the Woody Guthrie Archives (now located in Tulsa). That work produced documents that remain part of the archives, as well as a foundation for much future journalism and the co-authoring a play with colleague John Wooley, “Time Changes Everything,” a two-act fantasy about two conversations between Guthrie and country bandleader Bob Wills. I’ve served on the advisory board of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival for many years, have been a featured presenter twice at the Woody Guthrie Symposium, and was the keynote speaker for the Woody Guthrie Center's inaugural Changing World Prize.
In 1999, I created, launched and produced the Spot Music Awards, an annual ceremony honoring local musicians and voted by readers of the Tulsa World. Once upon a time, I even recorded some music myself.
When various planets align, I write about music and technology on the blog here, Phenomenoscopy, and I once ran a blog about a personal passion: tea. I now live in Oklahoma City with my husband of 30 years and this furry monster.
