Film and Media Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Cultural Studies, AI / Machine Learning, Big Data, Image Recognition, Computer Vision, Eye Tracking
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.
My current book project The Digital Closet (under contract with MIT Press) examines how heteronormative biases get embedded in the machine 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 an article on how race becomes hypervisible or invisible in machine vision systems, an article on how eye-tracking technologies came to define our contemporary notions of 'attention', and a methodological article on how to study black boxed algorithms.
Monea, A. (Forthcoming). Captured Time: Eye Tracking and the Attention Economy. In Volmar, A. & Stine, K. (Eds.) Hardwired Temporalities. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.
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)
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)
Faculty Research and Development Award, 2018, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George Mason University
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
PhD, North Carolina State University, 2016
MA, Bowling Green State University, 2012
BA, Walsh University, 2010
"Snowballing Bias: Benchmark Dataset Bias and the Case of ImageNet." Presentation for the AI Tea Series at the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University. March 26, 2021. (VIEW)
"The Rising Popularity of Data Ethics: Intersections between the Humanities and Computer Science" Presentation for the Center for Humanities Research at George Mason University. March 12, 2021. (VIEW)
“I Know It When I See It”: An Overview of Google’s SafeSearch and the Politics of Automating Judgment. Presentation at Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2018 Conference. March 17th, 2018. (VIEW)
Towards a Speculative Code Studies. Invited talk. Mellon DH Seminar hosted by the University of Pennsylvania's Price Lab for the Digital Humanities. Philadelphia, PA. October 24th, 2016. (VIEW)
Google's Knowledge Graph & Future-Histories of Thought. Invited talk. Control Societies Speaker Series, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. October 24th, 2016. (VIEW)
German Media Studies: From Culture to Technology and Back Again. Presentation at the Crossroads in Cultural Studies 2016 Biannual Conference. December, 2016.
Interview for With Good Reason episode "The Future is Now" (VIEW)
Article on NSF Grant, "Educators examine and explain algorithm ethics" (VIEW)