I’m an Americanist interested in popular culture, utopianism, digital media and technology, the future of work, ethnic studies, and critical theory.
I was born and raised on the east side of San José, California. My first texts were my father’s tattoos or “placas”: east side, madre, tropicana varrio locos.
After earning my PhD from Yale University’s Program in American Studies in late 2013, I moved to a suburb of Munich, Germany, with my wife and two daughters. I like to pretend that I can channel the spirit of Ernst Bloch, who wrote The Spirit of Utopia while meditating on the Alps in a nearby town.
From 2013-2015, I crossed the so-called Weißwurstäquator (the “white sausage border” that culturally separates Bavaria from the rest of Germany) to lecture in the Institute of English and American Studies at Frankfurt University. In 2016, I became Assistant Professor / Assistenzprofessor of American Studies at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.
In addition to finishing up a book on apocalyptic science fiction (“Un-American Dreams”), I’m doing preliminary research and writing for a book on automation (“What is Automation? A Cultural History of the Present in Six Technologies”). You can follow me on twitter and academia.edu.
© CC-BY-NC 4.0 Jesse Ramírez
