Andrew Pilsch

Associate Professor of English
Department of English
Texas A&M University


https://andrew.pilsch.com

Professional Experience

   
Interim Department HeadTexas A&M University2025-Present
Associate Department HeadTexas A&M University2023-2025
Associate ProfessorTexas A&M University2018-Present
Assistant ProfessorTexas A&M University2015-2018
Assistant ProfessorArizona State University2012-2015
Fixed-Term LecturerPennsylvania State University2011-2012
Graduate Teaching FellowPennsylvania State University2005-2011

Education

   
PhD, EnglishPennsylvania State UniversityMay 2011
   
MA, EnglishPennsylvania State UniversityMay 2007
BS, Computer ScienceGeorgia Institute of TechnologyMay 2005
BS, Science Technology & CultureGeorgia Institute of TechnologyMay 2005

Current Book Projects

The World According to Computer Bugs

Six-Chapter Manuscript, In-Progress – This book offers a media archaeological account of the computer bug. It argues that computer bugs represent the failure of computation to totalize the world and, therefore, anxiety over their omnipresence within critical digital infrastructure plays an outsized role in shaping the social landscape of the last 75 years. Individual chapters cover the role error plays in the work of Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Admiral Grace; the Y2k bug and the launch of Windows 95; software piracy in the Napster era; the rise of functional programming within infrastructure code; and the sustained belief in the simulationist hypothesis (the belief that the real world is actually a computer simulation) in Silicon Valley.

Publications

Books

Humans at Work in the Digital Age: Forms of Digital Textual Labor

14-Chapter Edited Collection, Co-Edited with Shawna Ross, Routledge (2019) – This edited collection explores the roots of twenty-first century cultures of digital textual labor, mapping the diverse physical and cognitive acts involved, and recovering the invisible workers and work that support digital technologies. Table of Contents Online at Routledge

Transhumanism: Evolutionary Futurism and the Human Technologies of Utopia

Six-Chapter Manuscript, University of Minnesota (2017) – This book explores the rhetorical history of “evolutionary futurism,” a twentieth century Utopian rhetorical mode associating advancing telecommunications technologies with biological evolution to suggest near-future radical shifts in human existence and cognition. Tracing this rhetoric of transhumanism, chapters explore the evolutionary futurism of theosophy, 1940s science fiction, Raymond Kurzweil, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In addition to a theoretical introduction, the book also contains an extended discussion of contemporary digital aesthetics as transhuman vectors of evolutionary overcoming.

Prizes: 2017 Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize
Reviews: Modernism/Modernity (25.1), Configurations (26.4), Contemporary Political Theory, Science Fiction Studies (46.1)

Articles & Chapters

“Teaching Science Fiction as Media Archaeology” in Science Fiction in the Literature Classroom. Ed. Gerry Canavan. (collection accepted by MLA).

“Locating the minimal in minimal computing pedagogy: minimal computing tools and the classroom management of student composing workflows.” Learning, Media, and Technology (Published 2024, Issue Number Forthcoming)

“Digital Labor” Chapter in Bloomsbury Handbook to the Digital Humanities. Co-authored (40%) w/ Shawna Ross. Ed. James O’Sullivan. (Bloomsbury, 2023).

“What the Computer Said: Poetic Machines, Rhetorical Adjuncts, and the Circuits of Eloquence” in Re-Programmable Rhetorics. Eds. Steven Holmes and Michael Faris. (Utah State UP, 2022).

“Computation.” Chapter in The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism and Technology. Eds. Ian Whittington and Alex Goody. (Edinburgh UP, 2022).

“Writing.” Chapter in Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism. Ed. Aaron Jaffe, Michael F. Miller, Rodrigo Martini. (Bloomsbury, 2021).

“The Posthuman City.” Chapter in The City in American Literature and Culture. Ed. Kevin McNamara. (Cambridge UP, 2021).

“Events in Flux: Software Architecture, Detractio, and the Rhetorical Infrastructure of Facebook.” Special Issue, “Composing Algorithms: Writing (with) Rhetorical Machines,” of Computers & Composition 57 (2020): n.p..

“Polynesian Paralysis: Tiki Culture and the Aesthetics of American Empire.” Chapter in The Shaken and the Stirred: The Year’s Work in Cocktail Culture. Eds. Stephen Schneider and Craig N. Owens. (Indiana UP, 2020).

“Life During Wartime: Science Fiction during and after World War II.” Chapter in The Cambridge History of Science Fiction eds. Gerry Canavan and Eric Carl Link. (Cambridge UP, 2018).

“The Ethos of Mr. Robot.” Present Tense 7.1 (2018): n.p.

“Translating the Future: Transpilers and the Implementation of JavaScript’s Future.” Amodern 8 (“Translation-Machination” special issue, ed. Christine Mitchell & Rita Raley) (2018): n.p.

“Invoking Darkness: Skotison, Scalar Derangement, and Inhuman Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 50.3 (2017): 336-355.

“‘We twiddle…and turn into machines’: Mina Loy, HTML, and the Machining of Information.” Chapter in Reading Modernism with Machines eds. Shawna Ross & James O’Sullivan (Palgrave, 2016).

“Insect Capital.” New American Notes Online (NANO) 8 (2015).

“Self-Help Supermen: The Politics of Fan Utopias in World War II-Era Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 41.3 (2014): 524-542.

Reviews

“Review of Technosystems by Andrew Feenberg”. Contemporary Political Theory (2017).

“Ethical Models for Nonhuman, Collective Rhetoric: A Review of Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times by Alexis Shotwell and Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene by Joanna Zylinska”. Enculturation (2017).

“After ‘The’ ‘Text’: A Review of Comparative Textual Media.” Review of Comparative Textual Media edited by N. Katherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman. Enculturation (2016).

“Review of MP3: The Meaning of a Format by Jonathan Sterne.” Information Society 29.5 (2013): 316-317.

“Review of Slime Dynamics by Ben Woodard.” Itineration, 2013.

“A Review of The Breakup 2.0 by Illana Gershon.” Information Society 28.2 (2012): 126-127.

“Contagious Narratives: Towards a Global Epidemiology in Priscilla Wald’s Contagious.” Review Of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative by Priscilla Wald. BioSocieties 4.2-3 (2009): 326-328.

Non-Peer-Reviewed

“What Does Flash Reason Look Like.” Textshop Experiments 5 (2018): n.p.

“When the Coffee Machine Is Just a Human.” An Object Lesson for The Atlantic (January 28, 2016).

Online Editions & Open Source Software

Online Editions

Mina Loy Online. A collection of poems and manifestoes by avant-garde modernist Mina Loy, posted online in an open-access, typographically correct format. http://oncomouse.github.io/loy.

Open Source Software

coc-bibtex, Lead developer. Open-source bibliography extension for the popular Vim editor that reads BibLaTeX files, such as those produced by Zotero, and auto-generates in-text citations for users editing LaTeX and Markdown documents. See usage statistics

coc-fish, Lead Developer. Plugin for the popular Vim editor and Coc framework that adds autocompletion for the Fish shell. See usage statistics

rake-and-pandoc, Lead Developer. Framework for writing books using the open source Markdown engine, Pandoc, and the task automation system, Rake.

jquery-inline-footnotes, Lead Developer. Open source plugin for the industry-standard Javascript framework, jQuery that converts footnotes generated by Markdown into responsive, elegant side notes.

The Goldilocks Approach SASS, Lead Developer. Open source port of The Goldilocks Approach (a CSS responsive design framework) to SASS (a CSS preprocessor used throughout the web development industry).

Grants & Awards

Grants

Co-author. “Toward a Digital Henry James.” With Shawna Ross, College of Letters & Science at ASU. ASU Institute for Humanities Research Seed Grant, Fall 2014. Awarded.

Co-author. “Toward a Digital Henry James.” With Shawna Ross, College of Letters & Science at ASU. ASU Institute for Humanities Research Seed Grant, Spring 2013. Revise and Resubmit.

Awards

SLS Faculty Summer Research Initiative, 2013 & 2014. (Arizona State)

Wilma Ebbitt Graduate Award in Rhetorical Studies, 2010. (Penn State)

Philip Young Memorial Endowment in American Literature, 2006. (Penn State)

Talks, Workshops, & Presentations

Invited Talks

“Authoring ‘The Statement on Generative AI and Writing.’“ (w/ Jason Crider) Hear From Peers: Navigating AI. Center for Teaching Excellence at Texas A&M. 2023.

“The What, Why, and How of Net Neutrality.” New York Times Café. ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus. 2014.

Workshops Conducted

“The Frontend: Modern JavaScript and CSS Development.” Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI). Victoria, British Columbia. June, 2019 (4-day seminar).

“The Frontend: Modern JavaScript and CSS Development.” Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI). Victoria, British Columbia. June, 2018 (4-day seminar).

Conference Presentations

Retrofuturistic Writing Machines: What Writing Studies Can Make With Media Theory. Computers & Writing 2025 Conference, Fort Worth, TX, 2025.

“Backwards into the Future: Writing the Retro-computer.” Computers & Writing 2024 Conference, Fort Worth, TX, 2024.

“Diogenes and the Possibility of Non-Rhetoric.” 20th Biennial RSA Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2022.

“The Totalitarian as Reality-Pilot: Transhumanist World Projects in Philip K. Dick’s Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.” Modernist Studies Association 2019 Conference, Toronto, ON, 2019.

“Frankenstein’s Monster vs Cthulhu!: Imagining the Monster at the End of this World.” “It’s Alive!”: Frankenstein’s Monster 200 Years Later, College Station, TX, 2018.

“Composition not Inheritance: Imagining a Functional Digital Humanities.” DHSI Colloquium, Victoria BC, 2018.

“Alien Megastructures: The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Life and the Rhetoric of Hope in the Anthropocene.” 18th Biennial RSA Conference, Minneapolis, MN, 2018.

“Events in Flux: Software Architecture and Rhetorical Subtraction.” 18th Biennial RSA Conference, Minneapolis, MN, 2018.

“Security Through Transparency: Minimal Computing in the Jungle of the Real.” 133rd MLA Annual Convention, New York, NY, 2018.

Facilitator, “Commonsense Information Security for Academics.” 133rd MLA Annual Convention, New York, NY, 2018. (Cancelled Due to Weather)

Roundtable Participant, “Hacking the Scholarly Workflow.” 133rd MLA Annual Convention, New York, NY, 2018. (Cancelled Due to Weather)

“The Jungle of the Real: Hacking Infrastructure After Baudrillard.” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2017 Conference, Tempe, AZ, 2017.

“Rocket Into Darkness: Accelerationism, Space, and the Future of the Future.” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2017 Conference, Tempe, AZ, 2017.

Roundtable Participant, “Working Out Loud: Online Identity Building, Digital Networking, and Professional Development.” 132nd MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, 2017.

Lachrymator: Persuasion’s Tear Gas.” 17th Biennial RSA Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2016.

“The Rhetorical Future of the Soul at Work.” 17th Biennial RSA Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2016.

“‘The sharpest part of my skeleton’: Digital Surrealism, Weird Posthumanism, and Performing Theory.” Computers & Writing 2016 Conference, Rochester, NY, 2016.

Chair and Organizer, Critical Informatics and the Digital Humanities. 131st MLA Annual Convention, Austin, TX, 2016.

“Worlds Without Us: The Horror of Indifference in The Southern Reach Trilogy The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2015 Conference, Houston, TX, 2015.

“Interpretation Comes Alive” The Conference on College Composition and Communication, Tampa, FL, 2015.

Roundtable Participant, “Approaching The Peripheral: First Responses to William Gibson’s New Novel” 130th MLA Annual Convention, Vancouver, BC, 2015.

“Sex and the Singularity: On The Reproduction of Software Objects” 130th MLA Annual Convention, Vancouver, BC, 2015.

“Coffee Futurism” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2014 Conference, Dallas, TX, 2014.

“Posthuman, Nonhuman, Inhuman: Toward An Eldritch Rhetoric” 16th Biennial RSA Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2014.

“Polynesian Paralysis” Cocktail Culture: A Conference, Louisville, KY, 2014.

“How Did I Get Here?: GPS, Surveillance Culture, and Personal Narrative” The Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN, 2014.

“Shooting at Agency” Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference 2013, Salt Lake City, UT, 2013.

“‘I am afraid of a draught of cool air’: Lovecraft, Air Conditioning, and Autophagic Modernity” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2013 Conference, South Bend, IN, 2013.

“When Writing is no Longer Writing: Institutions, Objects, Disciplines” Computers and Writing 2013 Conference, Frostberg, MD, 2013.

“Thinking Different: Primitive Accumulation, Cognitive Economies, and the Quest for a More Perfect Mind” 15th Biennial RSA Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2012.

“Becoming Object: Facebook, Life Writing, and Tool-Being” The Conference on College Composition and Communication, St. Louis, MA, 2012.

“As Study or As Paradigm?: Humanities and the Uptake of Emerging Technologies,” 127th MLA Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, 2012.

“Remixing ‘Technical Communication’: Design, Techné, and the Production of Documents,” The Conference on College Composition and Communication, Louisville, KY, 2010.

“He Called It ‘Utopia’: Jameson’s Social and Vedic Transhumanism,” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2009 Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2009.

“Utopia.com: Fredric Jameson and Piracy Online,” The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts 2007 Conference, Portland, ME, 2007.

“Revising Tomorrow: the Historical Present, Telecommunications, and Capitalism in Nova and Neuromancer,” Samuel Delany: A Critical Symposium, University at Buffalo (State University of New York), 2006.

Teaching Experience

Texas A&M University

Arizona State University

Professional Service

For National Organizations

Application Reviewer, Mellon Fellowships, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2021.

Member-at-large, Executive Committee, The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts, 2015-2017.

Program Committee Member, The Society For Literature, Science, and the Arts Conference, 2013.

For Journals / Presses

Manuscript Reviewer, AI & Society, 2025.

Manuscript Reviewer, Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, 2024.

Manuscript Reviewer, Philosophies, 2023.

Manuscript Reviewer, Enculturation, 2022.

Manuscript Reviewer, University of Alabama Press, 2021, 2023.

Manuscript Reviewer, Communication and the Public, 2022.

Manuscript Reviewer, Literature Compass, 2021.

Manuscript Reviewer, Configurations, 2021, 2024.

Manuscript Reviewer, Kairos, 2019.

Manuscript Reviewer, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 2018.

Manuscript Reviewer, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017.

Manuscript Reviewer, PMLA, 2017.

Manuscript Reviewer, Journal of Digital Literary Studies, 2016.

Manuscript Reviewer, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 2015.

Digital Projects & Tools Editor, Journal of Digital Literary Studies, 2015-2019.

For Texas A&M University

College of Arts & Sciences Digital Learning Committee, 2024-2025.

Emerging and Innovative Technologies Committee, 2024-2025 – University IT Governance Advisory Committee.

Innovative Teaching Fellows, AI Advisor, 2024-Present.

College of Arts & Sciences Digital Learning Taskforce, 2023-2024.

Provost’s Office Teaching Innovation Group, 2023.

For Texas A&M University, Department of English

Interim Department Head, 2025-Present.

Associate Department Head, 2023-2025.

Ad-hoc Committee on Research Excellence Chair, 2024.

Critical AI Search Committee, 2023-2024.

Ad Hoc Digital Humanities Certificate Committee, 2023-2024.

Critical AI Search Committee, 2023-2024.

McAllen VAP Search Committee, 2023.

Lecturer Search Committee, 2023.

Writing Studies Search Committee Chair, 2022-2023.

Writing Studies Search Committee Chair, 2021-2022.

Ad-hoc Tenure Process Review Committee, 2019-2020.

Graduate Studies Committee, 2017-2020.

Strategic Planning Committee, 2016-2019.

Digital Humanities Working Group Convener, 2015-2017.

Multimedia Editing & Writing Ad-hoc Committee, 2015-2017.

Ad-hoc Writing Committee Member, 2015-2016.

Rhetoric & Composition Search Committee Member, 2015.

First Year Review Committee Member, 2015.

For Arizona State University

IHC English Education Search Committee Member 2014 – Successful hire for tenure-track assistant professor in English Education.

Noösphere Reading Group Organizer, 2014 – Informal reading group of SLS faculty reading works related to the topics of global consciousness and global awareness.

IHR Nexus Lab Advisory Group Member, Institute for Humanities Research, 2013-2015 – The Nexus Lab, resulting from the work of the DH Initiative at ASU, serves as a focal point and incubator for collaborative, digital research across the humanities at ASU.

IHR Nexus Lab Data Visualization Working Group Member, 2014-2015.

Digital Humanities Initiative Working Group Member, Institute for Humanities Research, 2013 – Created purpose document inaugurating an interdisciplinary research and pedagogy initiative for digital humanities.

Peer Promotion Committee Chair, Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communications, 2012 – Reviewed materials for colleagues seeking promotion.

Relevant Skills

Computer Programming – Thorough knowledge of multiple computer programming languages such as C, Java, Ruby, PERL, and LISP. Significant experience in building websites using advanced technologies such as PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, and Apache.

Professional Affiliations

The Modern Language Association

Rhetoric Society of America

The Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts

References

Available Upon Request