I was born just after the New Left died and shortly before abortion was legalized. Growing up in the planned suburban community of Irvine, California, I was exposed at a young age to the clash between Information Era techno-utopianism and the disturbing realities of middle-class greed, cynicism, and sexual repression.

When I moved to Berkeley, California, I began what became a ten-year odyssey through the land of academia. During that time, I founded a webzine, Bad Subjects, which is still going strong; I published two books, White Trash: Race and Class in America (Routledge, 1997) and The Bad Subjects Anthology (NYU Press, 1998); and in 1998 I graduated from UC Berkeley with a Ph.D. in English and American Studies. I wrote my dissertation on images of monsters, psychopaths, and capitalism in 20th Century American pop culture. After working for a year as an adjunct professor, I decided to pursue the career I loved most: writing.

I had been freelancing since 1996, mostly for alternative weeklies and on-line magazines, and in early 1999, I began to write for a living full-time. Having spent so many years studying pop culture and media in academia, I was naturally interested in writing about these topics as a journalist. My writing these days is largely focused on pop culture and technology -- I've published articles on everything from the politics of open source software, to hacker subcultures. I also write about sexuality and other social issues like crime, violence, and corporate culture. I have a weekly syndicated column called Techsploitation, which is about the ways that media mutates and reiterates the problems of everyday life.

Currently, I am developing a futurism and science fiction blog for Gawker Media -- it will go live in fall 2007, and I will be its lead editor. I am also a freelance writer and a contributing writer at Wired magazine. During 2004 and most of 2005, I was the policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In 2006 I published a book based on my doctoral research. It's called Pretend We're Dead, and it was published by Duke University Press. In early 2007, Seal Press published a collection of essays I co-edited called She's Such a Geek -- yes, it's about female nerds.

Formerly, I was the culture editor at The San Francisco Bay Guardian and in 2002 I was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, which allowed me to spend the 2002-2003 academic year as a research fellow at MIT. My work has appeared in magazines and papers such as Wired, New York Magazine, Popular Science, New Scientist, Salon, SecurityFocus, The Industry Standard, GettingIt, Feed, Gear, Nerve, The Utne Reader Online, Alternative Press Review, New York Press, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Silicon Valley Metro, and several academic journals and anthologies.

Want me to be your writer, pundit, lecturer, or word-wrangler? Need a complicated dose of didacticism or a tasty little soundbyte? Drop me a line at annalee AT techsploitation.com.

For anthropological laughs, check out my ancient, out-of-date website.