Adrienne Adams (they/them) explores the entanglement of technological obsolescence and
black sex/gender from the vantage points of Caribbean cultural studies, elemental and new
media studies, and science/technology studies.
An Oxy alum, they are currently completing their PhD in American Studies and Ethnicity at USC.
Their dissertation, Black Obsolescence: Sex, Analog Technology, and the Affective Ruse of
Lost Media, pairs the aesthetics of analog technologies—VHS tapes, the xerox machine, optical
tape, cassette tape—with black diasporic feminist, queer, and trans aesthetic objects to think
through how decay mutually constitutes blackness and obsolete media.
Adams’ work has earned national fellowships through the Ford Foundation, Walton Family
Foundation, Point Foundation, Imagining America, Elton John AIDS Foundation, and HASTAC.
Their publications appear or are forthcoming in GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies,
American Quarterly, the Oxford African American Studies Center, and Spit & Spider Press.
During the 2024-25 school year, they will teach a course on analog technology and blackness in
the Fall and guest program the Media Arts & Culture department’s annual Cinematheque public
program series.