Congratulations to our newest cohort of Rhetoric Ph.D. students starting this fall! We are delighted to welcome you to our active and vibrant intellectual community at Cal!
Chiara Bercugot her BA in Sociology from Wesleyan University. She will be pursuing a project about the carceral uptake of machine learning tech and the colonial imperatives that structure epistemological networks, with a special interest in psychoanalytic and cybernetic conceptions of the subject.
Oakley Haight holds a Research Master’s from the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, therein researching divergent legal and institutional configurations of EU bordering technologies. Oakley previously earned a BA in International Studies and Middle East Studies from Middlebury College, studying Arabic literature, as well as the historical production of international legal discourse.
Russell Ladson is an artist and human-computer interaction researcher based in Oakland, CA. Working across computational and experimental media, his practice uses modes of computation to investigate the relationships and possibilities between the more-than-human world and other living matter that explore space, time, and memory. His research interests include new media, science and technology studies, and critical theory. He holds a MA in Arts Politics, MPS in Interactive Telecommunications (ITP) both from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and a BA in Economics from Morehouse College.
Pictured clockwise from upper right: Chiara Bercu, Russell Ladson, Oakley Haight.