Marcel O'Gorman

Dr. Marcel O’Gorman is a University Research Chair, Professor of English, and Founding Director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), where he teaches courses, leads collaborative projects, and directs workshops in digital design and the philosophy of technology. The CML is located inside the Communitech Hub in Kitchener, where its role is to disseminate a philosophy of “tech for good.”

O’Gorman has published widely about the impacts of technology, including his books E-Critand Necromedia and articles in Slate, The Atlantic, and The Globe and Mail. He is also a digital artist with an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances. This experience guides the creative hands-on methods espoused by the Critical Media Lab and outlined in detail in his most recent book Making Media Theory: Thinking Critically with Technology. O’Gorman’s most recent research looks at how critical and inclusive design methods might help tackle some of the moral and ethical issues faced by contemporary technoculture. With this in mind, O’Gorman recently co-invented Resistor Case, a phone case and lesson plan designed to promote self-regulation with digital devices in high school classrooms.

Areas of PhD supervision include critical media studies, posthumanist philosophy, animal studies, critical design, feminist and queer technology studies, decolonial and anti-racist media studies.