Visiting Assistant Professor School of Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh 620 IS Building 135 North Bellefield Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Tel: (412) 624-5230 e-mail: pkeilty [at] gmail [dot] com
 Royce Hall, UCLA My research interests include gender and sexuality, critical theory, cultural studies, information activities, information structure/ knowledge representation, digital culture, digital humanities, visual studies, philosophy of science and technology, rare books and manuscripts, and the history and theory of information studies.
Education PhD, Information Studies, UCLA, 2011 MLIS, UCLA, 2007 BA Literature, minor in International Relations, American University, 2005 School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, 2010 California Rare Book School, 2006 & 2010 Art Center College of Design, 2006 Study Abroad: London England, 2003 Foreign Exchange: Johannesburg, South Africa, 1999-2000 Recent publications Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader (Ed., with Rebecca Hong). Los Angeles, CA: Litwin Books (forthcoming) "Embodiment and Desire in Browsing Online Pornography." Proceedings of the iConference 2012, Toronto, Canada (forthcoming) “Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging.” Knowledge Organization 36.4 (Fall 2009): 240-248 “LGBT Information Needs.” In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, ed. Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maack. (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2009): 3275-3280 “Meditations on the Future of Latina/o Archival and Memory Practice, Research and Education” (with Clara M. Chu and Rebecca Dean). InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 5.1 (Winter 2009): article 5 “LGBT and Information Studies.” InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 3.1 (Winter 2007): article 6 Recent presentations Convener & panelist, "Material Relations: Information, Media, and Technology." Paper presentation and panel discussion at iConference 2012 (February 10, 2012). Presenter, "Embodiment and Desire in Browsing Online Pornography." Paper presentation at the iConference, Toronto, Canada (February 8, 2012) Presenter, "Technesexuality: Spectatorship in Electronic Culture." Paper presentation at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA (March 13, 2011) Presenter, "'Disembodiment' in Electronic Culture." Paper presentation at Thinking Gender 2011, Los Angeles, CA (February 11, 2011) Presenter, "Time in the Embodied Search for Online Pornography." Paper presentation at the UCLA Queer Studies Conference, Los Angeles, CA (October 8, 2010) Convener, “Mapping the Intersections of Information Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies.” Roundtable discussion at iConference 2010, Urbana, IL (February 5, 2010) Presenter, “Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging.” Poster session at ALISE 2009, Denver, CO (January 21, 2009) Panelist, “Engaging Community: Methods and Values in Community Informatics.” Panel discussion at iConference 2009, Chapel Hill, NC (February 10, 2009) Panelist, “Intersectionality and Interdisciplinarity: LIS Research/Education and Studies of the ‘Other.’” Panel discussion at ALISE 2009, Denver, CO (January 22, 2009) Panelist, “Intersectionality and Interdisciplinarity: Information Studies and Studies of the ‘Other.’” Panel discussion at iConference 2008, Los Angeles, CA (February 29, 2008) Panelist, “Working from Within: Participatory Practices to Engage Diverse Communities.” Presented at ALISE 2008, Philadelphia, PA (January 9, 2008) |
Book project My book project, entitled Seeking Sex: Embodiment and Electronic Culture, examines the ways in which the Internet has re-constituted many of our personal and social experiences, including our sexual experiences, by creating a network of sexual sociability online that indicates both public revelations of once solitary sexual pleasures and the body’s participation in creating new media cultures. In doing so, my dissertation initiates a conversation between information studies, sexuality studies, technology studies, and media studies to improve on the many quantitative and cognitive modes of description within information science, technology studies, and human-computer interaction research of our "information seeking behavior" and our encounters with computer technologies by emphasizing the ways in which our bodies, in addition to conscious, reflective thought, engage in the process of browsing online. These kinds of encounters with technology do not lend themselves easily to scientific, behaviorist, and positivist modes of description. I use existential phenomenology to discuss the embodied, performative, affective, socially networked, temporal, conjoined subject-object, and identity-constituting, identity-fracturing aspects of seeking sex in an electronic age. Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader With Rebecca Hong, I am editing a book for Litwin Books, which will survey the latest critical interventions into information, feminism, and queer issues. We expect to publish it in 2012. Please find the Table of Contents >>here (pdf). Classifications of Sexuality I am also interested in scientific, government, and institutional classifications of gender and sexuality. I recently published an article entitled "Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging” in Knowledge Organization. I consider phenomena that do not “belong” within a set of boundaries, especially where classification systems meet the politics of ontologies, diverse ways of being, and describe the ways in which certain queer phenomena are both dependent on and resistant to classification. In my future work, I intend to explore and document classifications of gender and sexuality as tools to enable information retrieval and as representations of knowledge structures. I am also interested in the ways in which the bounds of power of classification are not always top-down. Instead, classifications of sexuality are created under the weight of social disapprobation, often reflecting the nomenclature of subjects and desires within sexual subcultures always in relation to a dominant culture. These analyses are informed by numerous approaches to the question of socially constructed classifications of gender and sexuality offered by the history and philosophy of science, feminism, and queer theory. Digitizing Descriptive Bibliography This project concerns the physical description of printed books from the hand-press period (1450-1820), the effects of digitization efforts, and the skills necessary for bibliographic scholarship online. Bibliography, the study of books as material objects, takes three forms in an online environment. First, it requires traditional bibliographic knowledge: identifying literary documents, conducting precise physical descriptions of texts, judging the relationship between variant texts, and assessing their relative authority. Second, it requires an engagement with our subjective material relations to texts across different media. Finally, it means connecting certain computer programming languages, such as XML (Extensible Markup Language) and TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), with traditional bibliographic knowledge. By understanding the materiality of the book in a digital age, literary scholars and librarians will not only help inform the design of digital humanities projects, but they will also engage our changing relationship to language and literature in a digital age.  William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA Embodied engagements with and activity around information I am interested in the divergent theoretical, disciplinary, methodological, and interdisciplinary orientations of embodiment within information-seeking research. One can trace issues of embodiment within information-seeking literature at least as far back as Taylor (1962), in which he described the need for information as “visceral.” In recent years, a number of studies have reflected our visceral relations and activity around information. These issues can be found in information-seeking studies that discuss embodiment (sometimes implicitly) on a variety of registers: anxiety, desire, leisure, pleasure, boredom, frustration, uncertainty, curiosity, serendipity, surprise, anticipation, immersion, sense-making or cognition, habits, and memory, among others. Each of these embodied topics is a major area of interest within information-seeking scholarship. Embodiment abounds in our encounters with and activity around information so much so that it serves as a point of convergence for, if not fundamental part of, many of the issues and debates within broader information-seeking studies. Liberal humanism in information rhetoric I hope to offer a rigorous critique of liberal humanist rhetoric within information studies, while acknowledging the institutional realities of rights discourse. I am particularly interested in the concept of “pluralizing the archive.” Orthopraxis in the craft of librarianship Inspired by Mary Carruthers' work on medieval monastic memory and meditation, I am interested in the ways in which librarians, especially those working in special collections, learn the craft of librarianship not only through "rote" memory practices but also through something like Medieval memoria -- a kind of machina memorialis -- consisting of performative reminiscing cognition that is passed down from generation to generation. |
Fall 2011 IS 246: Information-Seeking
Spring 2012 LIS 2005: Organizing and Retrieving Information LIS 2405: Cataloging and Classification Summer 2012 LIS 2005: Organizing and Retrieving Information >> Syllabus TBD LIS 2970: Special Topics TBD >> Syllabus TBD
Activities Political news junkie, Netflix, reading, music Interests Museums, theater, queer zines, lemon meringue pie, cooking and baking, unscripted comedy, kitsch shops, home decor, fashion, aesthetics, and the politics of the U.S., UK, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana  "Urban Light" by Chris Burden, a sculpture at LACMA Books Summer Before the Dark, Wicked Women, Cloud 9, M. Butterfly, Grief, Vindication of the Rights of Women, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Mama Day, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, The Cherry Orchard, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Glass Bead Game, The Republic, Electra, Death in Venice, Sex Literature and Censorship, Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Gender Trouble, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, History of Sexuality, Epistemology of the Closet, Tendencies, Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, Killing the Black Body, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, Perverse Romanticism. Search my home library >> here. Movies Heavenly Creatures, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Ritz, 8 Women, Plata Quemada, All About My Mother, All About Eve, Hot Fuzz Television The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Washington Week with Gwen Ifill, As Time Goes By, Absolutely Fabulous, RuPaul's Drag Race, Masterpiece Theater, Parks and Recreation Music Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, B-52's, The Beatles, Beethoven, Beck,Belle & Sebastian, Beth Orton, Bjork, Blonde Redhead, Bob Dylan, Built to Spill, The Byrds, Carole King, Cat Power, Cat Stevens, The Chiffons, Cibo Matto, The Clash, Culture Club, The Cure, Dan Bern, Dandy Worhols, Dave Brubeck, David Bowie, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Dee Dee Warwick, Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, Eddie Vedder, Ella Fitzgerald, Elliot Smith, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Feist, Final Fantasy, Fiona Apple, Franz Ferdinand, Gloria Gaynor, Gossip, Gram Parsons, Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair, Ima Robot, Iron & Wine, James Brown, James Taylor, Jay-Z, Jeff Buckley, John Coltrane, John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Joy Division, Judy Garland, Kaiser Chiefs, The Kills, Kanye West, Kristen Hersh, Liza Minnelli, Louis Armstrong, Lulu, MIA, Madonna, Maxine Nightingale, Moldy Peaches, Mozart, Miles Davis, Missy Elliot, Modest Mouse, New Pornographers, New Young Pony Club, Nick Cave, Nirvana, NOFX, Nora Jones, Pansy Division, Patrick Wolf, Patti Smith, Pavement, Prince, Public Enemy, Queen, R.E.M., Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Rufus Wainwright, Ryan Adams, The Shins, Simon & Garfunkel, Sonic Youth, Sons and Daughters, Sunset Rubdown, The Supremes, T. Rex, Talking Heads, Tegan And Sara, U2,Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes, The Walkmen, White Stripes, Whitney Houston, Wilco, 10,000 Maniacs Wisdom and delight Joe Bristow, Johanna Drucker, Dustin Friedman, Jonathan Furner, Sandra Harding, Greg Leazer, Tim Murray, Jim Schultz, Eve Sedgwick, Richard Sha Family My parents are both public school teachers in Alta Loma, California. My brother is a brewer at Lompoc Brewing in Portland, Oregon. |