Jason Farman

Associate Dean of the Graduate School — Professor, Department of American Studies

jasonfarman@gmail.com |
www.jasonfarman.com |
3228 Tawes Hall, College Park, MD 20742

1. Personal Information

a. Current Position

Associate Dean of the Graduate School
Professor, Department of American Studies
Faculty member, Human-Computer Interaction Lab
Affiliate Faculty: Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), and the College of Information Studies
Faculty Associate (2019-2020): Harvard University, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

b. Education

Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles — School of Theater, Film, and Television, June 2006
Master of Arts, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California — English, June 2002
Bachelor of Arts, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California — Communication Studies and English, June 2000

c. Employment

University of Maryland, College Park
Professor of American Studies and Associate Dean of the Graduate School (2022–Present)
Professor of American Studies and Design Cultures & Creativity (2020–2022)
Associate Professor of American Studies and the Design Cultures & Creativity Program (2015–2020)
Assistant Professor of American Studies and the Design Cultures & Creativity Program (2010–2015)

Washington State University
Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program (2007–2010)

2. Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities

a. Books

i. Books authored

The Novelty Engine: The True Cost of Always Wanting More (in process)
Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World. Yale University Press, 2018. Winner of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology.
Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media. New York: Routledge, 2012. (Second Edition, 2021). Winner of the 2012 Book Award from the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

ii. Books edited

The Mobile Story: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies. New York: Routledge, 2014. (Sole editor)
Foundations of Mobile Media Studies: Essential Texts on the Formation of a Field. New York: Routledge, 2016. (Sole editor)

iii. Contributing author

Applied Media Studies: Theory and Practice. Ed. Kirsten Ostherr. Co-authors include Tara McPherson, Anne Balsamo, Lisa Parks, Heidi Rae Cooley, Elizabeth Losh, Lindsay Graham, Daniel Grinberg, Lindsay Palmer, Bo Reimer, and Patrick Vonderau. New York: Routledge, 2017.

b. Articles in Journals

i. Refereed Journal Articles

Show refereed journal articles

Parisi, David and Jason Farman, “The Time of Touch: Efficiency and Delay in Haptic Communication.” Convergence 25.1 (2019): 40–59.
“Invisible and Instantaneous: Geographies of Media Infrastructure from Pneumatic Tubes to Fiber Optics.” Media Theory 2.1 (2018): 1–22.
“Repair and Software: Updates, Obsolescence, and Mobile Culture’s Operating Systems.” Continent, 6.1 (2017): 20–24.
“Surveillance from the Middle: On Interception, Infrastructure, and the Material Flows of Asynchronous Communication.” Media Fields, 11.1 (2016): mediafieldsjournal.squarespace.com.
“Objects as Audience: Phenomenologies of Vibrant Virtuality in GPS Art.” Leonardo Electronic Almanac 21.1 (2016): 196–209.
“Stories, Spaces, and Bodies: The Production of Embodied Space Through Mobile Media Storytelling.” Communication Research and Practice 1.2 (2015): 101–116.
“Infrastructures of Mobile Social Media.” Social Media + Society 1, no. 1 (2015): 1–2.
“Creative Misuse as Resistance: Surveillance, Mobile Technologies, and Locative Games.” Surveillance & Society 12.3 (2014): 377–388.
“Mobile Media Performances as Asynchronous Embodiment.” International Journal of Screendance 2.1 (2011): 48–51.
“Mapping the Digital Empire: Google Earth and the Process of Postmodern Cartography.” New Media & Society 12.6 (2010), 869–888. (Reprinted in The Map Reader.)
“Hypermediating the Game Interface: The Alienation Effect in Violent Videogames and the Problem of Serious Play.” Communication Quarterly 58.1 (2010): 96–109.
“Surveillance Spectacles: The Big Art Group’s Flicker and the Screened Body in Performance.” Contemporary Theatre Review 19.2 (2009): 181–194.

ii. Non-Refereed Journal Articles

“Introduction to the Social Transformations from the Mobile Internet.” Future Internet 4.2 (2012): 545–550.
“StoryMarker: The Design of a Storytelling Platform for Mobile Phones.” The New Everyday. Special issue, Rough Cuts: Media and Design in Process. Ed. Kari Kraus (2012). storymarker

c. Book Chapters

i. Chapters in books (peer reviewed)

Show peer-reviewed book chapters

“Spatial Practices of the Second Offline.” The Second Offline: The Doubling of Time and Place. Ed. Hidenori Tomita. Singapore: Springer, 2021, 209–226.
“Mobile Media Stories and the Process of Designing Contested Landscapes.” Networked Self and Platforms, Stories, Connections. Ed. Zizi Papacharissi. Routledge, 2018, 188–202.
“When Geolocation Meets Visualization.” Augmented Reality: Innovative Perspectives across Art, Industry, and Academia. Eds. Sean Morey and John Tinnell. Parlor Press, 2017, 177–199.
“Location-based media.” Dialogues on Mobile Communication. Ed. Adriana de Souza e Silva. Routledge, 2016, 139–155.
“The Materiality of Locative Media: On the Invisible Infrastructure of Mobile Networks.” Theories of the Mobile Internet. Eds. Andrew Herman et al. Routledge, 2015, 45–59.
“Map Interfaces and the Production of Locative Media Spaces.” Locative Media. Ed. Rowan Wilken and Gerard Goggin. Routledge, 2015, 83–93.
“Storytelling and Locative Media: Exploring the Intersection of Site-Specificity, Content, and Materiality.” Routledge Companion to Mobile Media. Routledge, 2014, 528–537.
“Locative Media.” The Handbook of Mobilities. Routledge, 2014, 233–242.
“Historicizing Mobile Media: Locating Transformations in Embodied Space.” The Mobile Media Reader. Peter Lang, 2012, 9–22.
“Information Cartography: Visualizations of Internet Spatiality and Information Flows.” Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment). Eds. Kristin L. Arola and Anne Frances Wysocki. Utah State University Press, 2012, 85–96.
“Gertrude Stein in QuickTime: Documenting Performance in the Digital Age.” Complex Worlds. Baywood, 2011, 79–94.
“The Virtual Artaud: Computer Virus as Performance Art.” TechKnowledgies. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007, 157–167.

ii. Chapters in books (non-refereed)

“Introduction: Our Mobile Lives,” Foundations of Mobile Media Studies. Ed. Jason Farman. Routledge, 2016: xi–xxi.
“Site-specificity, Pervasive Computing, and the Reading Interface.” The Mobile Story. Routledge, 2014, 3–16.

d. Extension Publications

“The Waiting Game,” Monocle, April 24, 2024: monocle.com
“How to Wait Well,” Aeon/Psyche Magazine, September 30, 2020: psyche.co
“Getting Bored Could Be the Most Productive Thing You Do Today,” Management Today, July 31, 2019
“Fidget Spinners: How Buffering Icons Shape Our Sense of Time,” Real Life Magazine, June 28, 2017
“The Forgotten Kaleidoscope Craze in Victorian England.” Atlas Obscura, November 9, 2015
“A Manifesto for Active Learning.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 2013
“The Myth of the Disconnected Life.” The Atlantic, February 7, 2012
“Encouraging Distraction? Classroom Experiments with Mobile Media.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 9, 2012

e. Conference Proceedings (peer reviewed)

“Texting and Time: The Emotional Experience of Waiting in a Mobile Media Culture.” Select Papers of Internet Research, 2017.
De Souza e Silva, Adriana, Jason Farman, and Daniela de Cunto Bueno. “The Life Cycle of a Mobile Phone: Material Cultures of Manufacturing and Consumption.” Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2015.
“Site-Specificity, Pervasive Computing, and the Reading Interface.” Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2014.
“Locative Life: Geocaching, Mobile Gaming, and Embodiment.” Proceedings of the Digital Arts and Culture Conference, 2009.

f. Encyclopedia Entries

“Mobile Interface Theory.” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online. Ed. George Ritzer (Blackwell Publishing, 2012).

g. Keynotes, Conferences, and Professional Papers Presented

i. Keynote and Plenary Addresses

Show keynotes & plenaries

Keynote: “Humanistic Collaborations: A Field Guide.” Common Threads Conference, September 2021.
Plenary: “Creative Misuse: Tactics for Innovation at the Edges of the Familiar.” HCI Lab Symposium, May 2021.
Keynote: “Tactics for Waiting.” Bard College Symposium on Attention, April 2019.
Keynote: “Designs of Waiting: Delay, Latency, and the User Experience.” HCI Lab Symposium, May 2018.
Plenary: “Tactics for Waiting in a Mobile Media Age.” Disrupting Distance: Bard Graduate University, April 2018.
Plenary: “Time as Form: Temporal Readings of Media History.” Formations, University of Maryland, March 10, 2018.
Plenary: “The Waiting Gain: Interpreting Time Lag in Mobile Communication.” Are You Second Offline? Kensai University, Osaka, July 2017.
Plenary: “Spatial Stories and the Mobile Interface.” Situation Space, Humboldt University, January 2017.
Keynote: “Stories, Spaces, and Bodies in the Age of Mobile Media,” The Nancy Smith Distinguished Lecture Series, January 2015.
Keynote: “Storytelling with Mobile Media: The Production of Embodied Space in the Digital Age.” ANZCA, July 2014.
And others (see full list in your original CV for additional items).

ii. Refereed conference papers

Show refereed conference papers

“Newness as Surface: Industrial Design, Planned Obsolescence, and the Age of Technological Detachment,” 4S Conference, Honolulu, November 2023.
“How Technology Got a Surface: The Creation of Planned Obsolescence in an Age of Technological Detachment,” New Directions in the Humanities, Sorbonne Université, June 2023.
“Disappearing Affordances: Design, Agency, and the Technological Surface,” Arts in Society, Zaragoza, July 2022.
“Perceptions of Wait Times and Delays in a Mobile Media Age,” Psychology of Technology Symposium, UVA, November 2019.
“Buffering and Waiting in the Age of Instantaneous Media,” SCMS, Seattle, March 2019.
And many others (2018–2009) — full list preserved in the source doc.

iii–iv. Unrefereed / other participation

(Includes unrefereed conference presentations, pre-conference organization, panel chairs, invited talks, and invited lectures — see original document for full details.)

h. Grants

Provost’s Teaching Innovation Grant, University of Maryland, College Park (2020) ($12,710)
Research and Scholarship Grant, “Love Letters Lost: A History of How Networks Shape Intimacy.” University of Maryland (2019) ($9,000)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Book Grant for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology (2017–2018) ($46,500)
Office of Sustainability Grant, “Sustainable Technologies Project,” University of Maryland (2017–2018) ($33,645)
Future of Information Alliance / Deutsch Foundation Seed Grant for storytelling app, “Approach” (2013) ($25,000)
And multiple travel and seed grants (listed in full CV).

i. Fellowships, Prizes, and Awards

Elkins Fellow for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, University System of Maryland, 2025–2026.
Visiting Scholar Fellowship. Michigan State University, Special Collections (2024) ($3,000)
Fellow: Big Ten Academic Leadership Program (ALP) (2023–24)
National Federation of the Blind Accessibility Fellowship (2023)
Faculty Service Award, University of Maryland, College Park (2022)
Sustainability Teaching Fellow, University of Maryland (2018)
NEH Institute Fellow, Object Lessons with The Atlantic (2017)
And various book awards and fellowships (2012 AoIR Book Award, etc.).

j. Editorships, Editorial Boards, and Reviewing Activities

Editorial Board, Mobile Media & Communication (2013–Present)
Editorial Board, Social Media & Society (2014–Present)
Editorial Board, Global Performance Studies (2016–Present)
Editorial Board, New Media & Society (2014–2018)
Reviewer for multiple university presses and journals (University of Chicago Press, MIT Press, Routledge, Oxford, Stanford, etc.)

k. Select media coverage and expert appearances

Show selected media coverage

Quoted in “Post-Grads: Waiting Doesn’t Have to Be a Waste of Time,” The Washington Post, October 19, 2023.
Quoted in “Can Waiting Actually Make Us Happier?” The Australian, August 22, 2022.
Quoted in, “Plan Your Life Again, but Keep it Simple,” The New York Times, May 4, 2021.
Featured On-air Guest, Deeply Human (BBC), April 4, 2021.
Featured On-air Guest, 99% Invisible, September 3, 2019 — “Wait Wait…Tell Me!”
Quoted and interviewed widely (The Atlantic, GQ, National Geographic, Vox, etc.).

l. Creative Works and Digital Designs (Select)

Creator, I Will Stay, Site-Specific Audio Performance on Mobile Devices, Center Stage Theatre, Baltimore, December 17, 2015.
User Experience and Interface Design, “Approach: Every Voice, Every Path,” iPhone app (2013).
Creator, StoryMarker iPhone app for location-based storytelling (2010).
GIS visualization, “Mapping Baltimore’s Taverns, 1796–1810” (2011).

3. Teaching, Mentoring, and Advising

a. Courses taught

i. General courses

Show general courses taught

IMDM 350, “Immersive Media Design: Advanced Digital Media Theory,” Fall 2022/2023
AMST 628N, “Space, Place, and Identity in the Digital Age” (Graduate), Fall 2012 / 2016 / 2023
AMST 260, “American Culture in the Information Age,” multiple terms including Spring 2025
AMST 629I, “Material Culture and Internet Studies” (Graduate), Fall 2011 / 2017 / 2022
And numerous other undergraduate and graduate courses (full list available in source doc).

ii. Honors courses

HDCC 105, “Perspectives on Digital Cultures and Creativity,” Design Cultures and Creativity Honors Course, Fall 2012–2021
HDCC 106, “Mobile Media Design and Culture,” Spring 2015 / Summer 2016
HDCC 106, other honors variants (list available in full CV)

iii. Independent studies, tutorials, & internship supervision

(Includes ARHU 338, HDCC 379, AMST 789, AMST 698, AMST 898, and multiple independent studies from 2007–2021 — see source doc.)

b. Teaching awards

Lilly Fellowship from the Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Maryland, College Park, 2012–2013.

c. Advising

i. Undergraduate

Instructional advisor to 10–12 undergraduates annually in American Studies, and ~120 in the Design Cultures & Creativity Program (2010–2020). Instructional advisor to approximately 130 students annually in the Digital Technology and Culture Program, WSU (2007–2010).

ii. Graduate

Advisor for 5–6 graduate students in American Studies (Masters and Ph.D.) annually at University of Maryland, College Park.

iii. Doctoral supervision (completed & in process)

Show doctoral supervision (selected)

Dean’s Representative, Sohana Nasrin, Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Defended April 2024.
Dean’s Representative, Bradley Quarles, Dept. of Teacher and Learning Policy and Leadership. Defended April 2024.
Dean’s Representative, Salma Elsayed-Ali, College of Information Studies. Defended March 2024.
Dean’s Representative, Fielding Montgomery, Dept. of Communication. Defended February 2024.
Chair, Joseph Meyer. Department of American Studies. Defended October 2019. Placement: Academic Consultant, Baylor University.
Chair, Kevin Winstead. Defended July 2019. Placement: CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow, Microsoft Research Cambridge (previously).
And many additional completed & in-progress doctoral students (see full CV for complete list).

4. Service

a. Professional

Member, International Communication Association
Member, National Communication Association
Member, Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Member, Association of Internet Researchers
Member, American Studies Association
Member, Digital Games Research Association
Member, Electronic Literature Organization

ii. Reviewing activities for agencies & tenure reviews

Reviewer and external evaluator for numerous agencies and universities (Kluge Fellowship, Canada Research Chairs, NEH, tenure reviews for University of Hawaii, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Michigan, etc.).

b. Campus

i. Departmental

Chair, Name Change Committee, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, 2023–Present.
Program Director, Design Cultures & Creativity Program (2014–2017 and 2018–2022).
Merit Pay Committee, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland (2014/2016/2022/2023).
Graduate Program Comprehensive Exam Committee, Department of American Studies (2019, 2021).
Chair, Tenure and Promotion Committee, Department of American Studies, promotion cases and third-year reviews (selected).

ii. College

Member, Digital Studies Advisory Board, University of Maryland, College Park, 2016–Present; Member, Service Award Committee, College of Arts and Humanities (2023); Tenure committee memberships and multiple college-level committees (2014–2023).

iii. University

Associate Dean, The Graduate School, University of Maryland, College Park, 2022–Present.
Member and Organizer, Graduate Programs, Curricula, and Courses (PCC) Committee, 2022–Present.
Member, Vice-President’s Advisory Committee (VPAC), 2022–Present.
Member, Academic Procedures & Standards (APAS) Committee, 2022–Present.
Member, Digital Accessibility Advisory Committee, 2025–2026.
Chair, Search Committee, Associate Dean for Graduate Student Success, The Graduate School, 2025.