THOMAS CONNER is a communication researcher and teacher — a Ph.D. in Communication & Science Studies at the UC San Diego. He is also a seasoned writer and experienced features journalist. His studies of performing holograms and digital communication examine the mixed realities historically created through modern media technologies — the kind of shifting boundaries between real and virtual so many of us have struggled with during the pandemic.
His research interests include historical and media archaeological approaches to virtuality, technology, and performance; media studies of material interfaces and dead media; feminist and queer theories of embodiment; knowledge-production relationships between science and science fiction; and histories of pop music, fan cultures, and music criticism.
Dr. Conner's dissertation, "Learning to Live With Ghosts: Holopresence and the Historical Emergence of Real Virtuality Technologies," 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. The research unites four seemingly disparate cases — including actual optical holograms and scifi digital projections, as well as uses of the Pepper's Ghost stage illusion in both the 19th and 21st centuries — as iterations and enhancements of Vilém Flusser's technical image category. 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 phenomenon I call holopresence. Cavorting with holograms, in other words, surfaces for spectators the existing ghostliness of everyday modern experience.
His academic publications include 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, as well as peer-reviewed journal articles ranging from the ideologies of the Royal Polytechnic Institution and its exhibition of the Pepper's Ghost stage illusion to music studies of Woody Guthrie's early parasocial communication tactics and the commercialization of rock-criticism rhetoric. He has presented research at a wide range of conferences, from the usual acronyms (ICA, NCA, CSA, CAA, 4S, AoIR) to rich, intimate gatherings such as Theorizing the Web, Viscom, and the Woody Guthrie Symposium.
Thomas is an experienced teacher, a leader in undergraduate classrooms since 1995, having amended his professional career as an adjunct instructor (in English, literature, journalism, and communication) for 12 years before serving as an associate instructor and teaching assistant during his Ph.D. study. Having taught at an array of institutions — from liberal-arts and community colleges to R1 research universities — he is currently a lecturer in UC San Diego's esteemed Communication department, teaching flagship courses (Introduction to Communication), explorative seminars (Performance & Cultural Studies), and courses of his own design, including a theoretical investigation of American protest music (Music as Social Action) and a survey of Arts Criticism in America.
For 20 years, Thomas was a professional music and features journalist. An award-winning columnist and editor, Thomas was the pop-music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he covered the breadth of popular music — from folk music to death metal, live concerts to album reviews, thoughtful features to breaking news — as well as an editor of both print and online departments at the Sun-Times and the Tulsa World. His writing about music and culture has appeared additionally in The Washington Post, DownBeat magazine, This Land Press, and more.
A native Okie, Thomas was 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, Thomas served a fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in New York, during which he 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. Thomas has served on the advisory board of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival for many years; he has 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, Thomas 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, he recorded some music himself.
Thomas writes about music and technology on his blog here, as well as a dormant blog about a personal passion: tea. He lives in San Diego with his husband of 28 years and two furry monsters.
His research interests include historical and media archaeological approaches to virtuality, technology, and performance; media studies of material interfaces and dead media; feminist and queer theories of embodiment; knowledge-production relationships between science and science fiction; and histories of pop music, fan cultures, and music criticism.
Dr. Conner's dissertation, "Learning to Live With Ghosts: Holopresence and the Historical Emergence of Real Virtuality Technologies," 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. The research unites four seemingly disparate cases — including actual optical holograms and scifi digital projections, as well as uses of the Pepper's Ghost stage illusion in both the 19th and 21st centuries — as iterations and enhancements of Vilém Flusser's technical image category. 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 phenomenon I call holopresence. Cavorting with holograms, in other words, surfaces for spectators the existing ghostliness of everyday modern experience.
His academic publications include 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, as well as peer-reviewed journal articles ranging from the ideologies of the Royal Polytechnic Institution and its exhibition of the Pepper's Ghost stage illusion to music studies of Woody Guthrie's early parasocial communication tactics and the commercialization of rock-criticism rhetoric. He has presented research at a wide range of conferences, from the usual acronyms (ICA, NCA, CSA, CAA, 4S, AoIR) to rich, intimate gatherings such as Theorizing the Web, Viscom, and the Woody Guthrie Symposium.
Thomas is an experienced teacher, a leader in undergraduate classrooms since 1995, having amended his professional career as an adjunct instructor (in English, literature, journalism, and communication) for 12 years before serving as an associate instructor and teaching assistant during his Ph.D. study. Having taught at an array of institutions — from liberal-arts and community colleges to R1 research universities — he is currently a lecturer in UC San Diego's esteemed Communication department, teaching flagship courses (Introduction to Communication), explorative seminars (Performance & Cultural Studies), and courses of his own design, including a theoretical investigation of American protest music (Music as Social Action) and a survey of Arts Criticism in America.
For 20 years, Thomas was a professional music and features journalist. An award-winning columnist and editor, Thomas was the pop-music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he covered the breadth of popular music — from folk music to death metal, live concerts to album reviews, thoughtful features to breaking news — as well as an editor of both print and online departments at the Sun-Times and the Tulsa World. His writing about music and culture has appeared additionally in The Washington Post, DownBeat magazine, This Land Press, and more.
A native Okie, Thomas was 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, Thomas served a fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in New York, during which he 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. Thomas has served on the advisory board of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival for many years; he has 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, Thomas 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, he recorded some music himself.
Thomas writes about music and technology on his blog here, as well as a dormant blog about a personal passion: tea. He lives in San Diego with his husband of 28 years and two furry monsters.
