Alexander Monea

Dr. Alexander Monea is an Assistant Professor serving jointly in George Mason's English Department and Cultural Studies Department. He researches the history and cultural impacts of computers and digital media. He is also an Ethics, Equity, and Trust Area Editor for Data & Policy. He received his PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media from North Carolina State University.

Current Research

My book The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight examines how heteronormative biases get embedded in the computer vision algorithms and content filters that control the flow of content we encounter online. It examines everything from the anti-porn coalition of Christian conservatives and Alt-Right groups to the bias in datasets and algorithms that filter content to instances of sex educational and artistic materials being rendered invisible online.

My other recent work includes The Prison House of the Circuit: Politics of Control from Analog to Digital, a co-authored book on the logic of the circuit and its role in governance and statecraft, Amazon: At the Intersection of Culture and Capital, a co-edited book on Amazon.com, an article on how race becomes hypervisible or invisible in machine vision systems, and an article on how eye-tracking technologies came to define our contemporary notions of 'attention'.

Selected Publications

Monea, A. (2022). The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Monea, A. (2021). Captured Time: Eye Tracking and the Attention Economy. In Volmar, A. & Stine, K. (Eds.) Hardwired Temporalities. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.(VIEW)

Monea, A. (2019). Race and computer vision. In Sudmann, A. (ed.) The democratization of artificial intelligence: Net politics in the era of learning algorithms (pp. 189–208). Bliefield, Germany: Transcript (distributed by Columbia University Press). (VIEW)

Monea, A. (2019). From Aristotle to Computational Topoi. In Sundvall, S. (Ed.). Rhetorical Speculations: The Future of Rhetoric, Writing, and Technology. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Monea, A. (2016). The Graphing of Difference: Numerical Mediation and the Case of Google’s Knowledge Graph. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 16(5), 452–461. (VIEW)

Monea, A. & Packer, J. (2016). Media Genealogy and the Politics of Archaeology. The International Journal of Communication, 10, 3141–3159. (VIEW)

Grants and Fellowships

National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant, 2020, Co-PI for "Situated Algorithmic Thinking: Preparing the Future Computing Workforce for Ethical Decision-Making through Interactive Case Studies" (VIEW)

Curriculum Impact Grant, 2021, Co-PI on project to create an Ethics & AI Minor at GMU

Curriculum Impact Grant, 2021, Co-PI on project to perform anti-racist overhaul of doctoral curriculum and policies

Faculty Research and Development Award, 2018, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George Mason University

Courses Taught

CULT 860 – Social Media

HNRS 360 – Coping with the Internet

CULT 816 – Science & Technology

CULT 860 – Culture, Media, & Technology

ENGH 676 – Intro to Cultural Studies

ENGH 470 RS – Science & Technoculture in the History of Film

ENGH 451 – Science Fiction

ENGH 375/ENGH 507 – Web Authorship & Design

ENGH 318 – Intro to Cultural Studies

Education

PhD, North Carolina State University, 2016

MA, Bowling Green State University, 2012

BA, Walsh University, 2010

Recent Presentations

Monea, A. (2022). The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545952/)

Packer, J., de Villavicencio, P. S., Monea, A., Oswald, K., Maddalena, K. & Reeves, J. (2022). The Prisonhouse of the Circuit: Politics of Control from Analog to Digital. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (VIEW)

Smith, P., Monea, A., & Santiago, M. (Eds.) (2022). Amazon: At the Intersection of Culture and Capital. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. (VIEW)

Monea, A. (2022). I Know It When I See It: The Heteronormativity of Google's Safesearch. Porn Studies. (VIEW)

Monea, A. (2021). Captured Time: Eye Tracking and the Attention Economy. In Volmar, A. & Stine, K. (Eds.) Hardwired Temporalities. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. (VIEW)

Monea, A. (2019). Race and computer vision. In Sudmann, A. (ed.) The democratization of artificial intelligence: Net politics in the era of learning algorithms (pp. 189–208). Bliefield, Germany: Transcript (distributed by Columbia University Press). (VIEW)

Monea, A. & Packer, J. (2016). Media Genealogy and the Politics of Archaeology. The International Journal of Communication, 10, 3141–3159. (VIEW)

In the Media

Interview for With Good Reason episode "The Future is Now" (VIEW)

Article on NSF Grant, "Educators examine and explain algorithm ethics" (VIEW)