Kenneth S McAllister

Biography

A Professor of Public & Applied Humanities, Ken S. McAllister specializes in the early history of Western rhetorics, rhetorics of technology, and computer game studies. He has authored or co-authored six books, three edited collections, and dozens of articles and book chapters on media history, theory, and analysis. In his role as Co-Director of the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive—one of the largest publicly accessible collections of computer games and related material in the world—he has also published and lectured widely on the politics and processes of digital artifact archiving and preservation. 

Ken is currently serving as the Associate Dean of Research and Program Innovation in the College of Humanities, is Co-Chair of the Research Computing Governance Council's Data Visualization Committee, and is a founding partner of the UA CATalyst Studio (ne: iSpace), a campus-located maker lab accessible to all students, staff, and faculty interested in exploring immersive VR, augmented reality, 3D modeling and additive manufacturing, motion capture, Arduino and Raspberry Pi development, and other innovative tools for transdisciplinary scholars and teachers.

Degrees

• Ph.D. English--Rhetoric
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
• (Un)Plugging Technology: Articulating Digital Discourse through a Rhetoric of Popular Computing (Thesis Advisors: William A. Covino & James J. Sosnoski)
• M.A. Creative Writing--Poetry
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
• B.A. English--American Literature
• University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Arizona, United States