Spencer Adams

Spencer is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric with designated emphases in Critical Theory and Science and Technology Studies. His broad research interests include the history of polar science, the history of Marxist thought and practice and their relationship to the philosophy of science, critical theoretical approaches to climate change, the proletarianization of knowledge work, and science fiction. His dissertation, “At the Edges of Subsumption: Polar Futurism and the Labors of Knowledge Production” examines Antarctic life and science over the 20^th and 21^st century, tracing the subsumption of polar research under regimes of scientific professionalism and the subsumption of polar space under quotidian forms of social organization. In his dissertation, he argues that concealed within a rhetoric of alterity, in which Antarctic life, space, and knowledge work are couched, are experiments in disciplining labor under extreme environmental conditions.

Beyond academic work, he’s an avid baseball fan, crossword solver, baker, and chess hobbyist. He’s also frequently on the lookout for catsitting gigs.