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Gary Genosko
PhD

Professor

Communication and Digital Media Studies

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities

Contact information

Bordessa Hall - Room 310
Downtown Oshawa
55 Bond Street East
Oshawa, ON

905.721.8668 ext. 3819

gary.genosko@ontariotechu.ca

Background

Dr. Gary Genosko received his PhD from York University in 1992. He is a Full Professor and held a Canada Research Chair in Technoculture Studies from 2002 to 2012. He has received funding from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and Canada Foundation for Innovation. He has held Visiting Professor positions at the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney and the University of Toronto. He has extensive experience in research administration on SSHRC committees and served as President of the Toronto Semiotic Circle.

His global research footprint was established by bringing the writings of Félix Guattari into the conversation about contemporary Continental philosophy and media theory. The landmark book in this regard was The Guattari Reader (1996). His first book, Baudrillard and Signs (1994) established his position as a critical semiotic theorist, and his 2016 book, Critical Semiotics: Theory, from Information to Affect, asks the question whether semiotics can make an affective turn. His book McLuhan and Baudrillard: The Masters of Implosion (1999) situated the two thinkers in the then-burgeoning cyberculture. Recently, two volumes—When Technocultures Collide (2013) and Remodelling Communication (2012)— are forged in the crucible of communication and cultural studies. He possesses the extensive editorial experience and collaborated with Jay Hetrick on Machinic Eros: Félix Guattari’s Writings on Japan (2015) and with Nick Thoburn and Franco Bifo Berardi on After the Future (2011). Together with Scott Thompson, he published a groundbreaking study of governmental administrative surveillance in Ontario, Punched Drunk: Alcohol, Surveillance and the LCBO 1927-75(2009).

Current projects focus on the intersection of race and whistleblowing, the philosophical quandaries in Guattari's final book, Chaosmosis, and the Canadian painter Harley Parker.

A Japanese translation by M. Sugimura of his book Félix Guattari: A Critical Introduction, appeared in 2018.

Education

  • PhD, Social and Political Thought York University

Research and expertise

Dr. Genosko works on communication and cultural theory, subcultures in the digital underground, and whistle-blowers. His philosophical interests includes the philosophy of Félix Guattari. Post-media, communication modelling, critical semiotics, and media ecology play important roles in his writing.

Involvement

  • Books
    • With Kristina Marcellus. Back Issues: Periodicals and the Formation of Critical and Cultural Theory in Canada. Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture & Politics Series. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019. 
    • The Reinvention of Social Practices: Essays on Félix Guattari. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018.​
    • Critical Semiotics: Theory, from Information to Affect. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.
    • When Technocultures Collide: Innovation from Below and the Struggle for Autonomy. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013.
    • Remodelling Communication: From WWII to the WWW. Toronto Studies in Semiotics and Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
    • Co-author. Punched Drunk: Alcohol, Surveillance and the LCBO, 1927-1975. Winnipeg/Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2009.
    • Félix Guattari: A Critical Introduction. Modern European Masters Series. London: Pluto Press, 2009.
    • The Party without Bosses: Lessons on Anti-Capitalism from Félix Guattari and Luís Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva. Semaphore Series. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 2003.
    • Félix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction. London and New York: Continuum Press, 2002.
    • McLuhan and Baudrillard: The Masters of Implosion. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
    • Contest: Essays on Sports, Culture and Politics. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 1999.
    • Undisciplined Theory. London/Thousand Oaks/Delhi: Sage, 1998.
    • Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
    • Co-edited with Jay Hetrick, Machinic Eros: Félix Guattari’s Writings on Japan. Minneapolis: Univocal, 2015.
    • Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, After the Future, co-edited and introduced, with an interview, in collaboration with Nick Thoburn. Edinburgh/San Francisco/Baltimore: AK Press, 2011.
    • Marshall McLuhan: Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory, Volumes I, II & III. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
    • The Uncollected Baudrillard. London/Thousand Oaks/Delhi: Sage, 2001.
    • Deleuze and Guattari: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, Volumes I, II, & III. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
    • The Guattari Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
    • The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary. Ed. by Eugene Young, with G. Genosko and J. Watson, London and New York: Continuum, 2013.
  • Special issues of journals
    • Co-editor. "The Designscapes of Harley Parker," Amodern 5 (2015). 
    • Special issue editor. “Félix Guattari in the Age of Semiocapitalism,” Special Issue of Deleuze Studies 6/2 (2012).
    • Co-editor. Special issue on “Models, Metamodels and Contemporary Media,” Fibreculture 12 (2008).
    • Co-editor. Special issue on “Recordings,” Culture Machine 9 (2007).
    • Co-editor. Special Issue on “Technology and Culture,” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 11 (2004).
  • Recent articles available in French and Italian translation
    • “Félix Guattari et David Wojnarowicz: Essai de schizoanalyse,” French trans. Anne Querrien, Chimères 88 (2016): 187-96.
    • “Storie di cani. La cinofilia freudiana,” Italian trans. Felice Cimatti, Animot 111/2 (Dicembre 2016): 52-92.