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Sam Hunter

Curriculum vitae (updated 9/6/2026)

Samuel.L.Hunter@dartmouth.edu | huntersl444@gmail.com

614.395.8003

Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Dartmouth College

Hanover, NH                                                                                                                   

EDUCATION

PhD, Cinema and Media Studies, UCLA (2026)

Dissertation: Digital Queerdom: Utopian Desire and Queer Computation, 1992-2010

Committee: Amy Villarejo (chair), Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, Veronica Paredes, Shaka McGlotten (SUNY Purchase)                                    

Concentration certificate: Gender Studies

Qualifying exams (high pass): Queer Screen Culture, Revolutionary Cinema                       

Master of Arts, English Literature, Miami University (2019)                                

Thesis: Coming Out Cinema: Speech, Cinema and the Making of Queer Subjects

Bachelor of Arts, English Literature & Creative Writing, Miami University (2018)           

Cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, English Honors

Minor: Rhetoric & Writing

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Lecturer, Dartmouth College, Dept. of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2026-present)

Lecturer, California State University Fullerton, Dept. of Gender & Sexuality Studies (2025)

PEER REVIWED WRITING

“Digital Queers’ Cyberutopia After the End of History.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. OnlineFirst, April 8, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565261441154

“Love, Victor and the Utopian Function of Networking Queer Identity Work.” In New Queer Television: From Marginalization to Mainstreamification. Edited by Danielle Girard, Thomas Brassington, Debra Ferreday. Intellect Press, February 2025. https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835950067_3

OTHER SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

“Lady Bird,” “My Own Private Idaho” and “Wet Hot American Summer.” Summary & critical analysis. Encyclopedia of LGBTQIA+ Portrayals in American Film, edited by Erica Dymond and Salvador Jimenez Murguía. Rowan & Littlefield, October 2022. 218-222, 266-270, 392-395.

“Image Objects: An Archeology of Computer Graphics by Jacob Gaboury (review).” New Media & Society 24.4 (April 2022). 1028-1030. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221077279

“Making Sex Public, And Other Cinematic Fantasies by Damon R. Young (review).” Film & History 50.1 (Summer 2020). 101-102. https://doi.org/10.1353/flm.2021.0016

IN-PROGRESS/FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

Essay on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “Queer and Now” for Feminist Influences: Theorists and Writings that Shaped Feminist and Queer Media Studies. Edited by Pamela Robertson Wojcik.

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS

Jack K. Sauter Award, UCLA TFT (2025)

Dissertation Year Award, UCLA (2024)

Fellowship, UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (2024)

Teshome Gabriel Memorial Award, UCLA TFT (2024)

SCMS Caucus on Class Graduate Student and Precarious Scholar Essay Award (2024)

Otis Ferguson Memorial Award in Critical Writing, UCLA TFT (2023)

Summer Mentored Research Fellowship, UCLA (2021)

            With Professor Amy Villarejo

Georgia Frontiere Scholarship in Memory of the Humanitarian Efforts of Aaron Curtis Taylor, UCLA TFT (2021, 2022)

INVITED TALKS

“Who wants to be a Kajillionaire?” UCSB Carsey-Wolf Center Annual Conference: Anonymous Labor in Film and Media. Santa Barbara, CA. February 2025.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Improvisation as Subsumption: Queer Publicity on Gay.com.” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. Chicago, IL. October 2026.

“’We Need to Cook’ : r/Kitchencels and the Ironic Digital Culture of Incel Social Reproduction.” Cultural Studies Association Conference. Virtual. May 2026.

“Antinomies of Digital Queers’ Cyberutopia.” Cultural Studies Association Conference. Valencia, CA. May 2025.

“Technology Updates, Queer Activism, and Hegemony in the 1990s.” Aberrations Graduate Conference. Los Angeles, CA. May 2025.

“PlanetOut’s Experiments with Queer Relations and Digital Subsumption.” UCLA Center for Performance Studies Experiment in Trouble Conference. Los Angeles, CA. February 2025.

“Queer Activism & Techno-Utopia: The Electrifying Case of Digital Queers.” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association. Baltimore, MD. November 2024.

“PlanetOut: On the Queer Internet’s Uneven Development.” Electronic Literature Organization Conference and Media Arts Festival: (Un)linked. Virtual. July 2024.

“On Cyberqueers: New Media Activism & Queer Marxist Analysis.” U of Florida Critical Theory Reading Group Conference: Marxism and The Digital Public. Gainesville, FL. April 2024.

“Desiring Networks: Queer Relations and Capitalist Accumulation on PlanetOut.com.” Society for Cinema & Media Studies. Boston, MA. March 2024.

“Utopian Desire & Digital Queers After the End of History.” Thinking Gender: Dystopian Realities, Feminist Utopias. Los Angeles, CA. February 2024.

“Digital Queers: Evaluating the Silicon Solution to Gay Liberation.” Society for Cinema & Media Studies. Denver, CO. April 2023.

“Reinventing Digital Materialism: Queer Art Towards Revolutionary Politics.” Console-ing Passions. Orlando, FL/Virtual. June 2022.

“Dystopic State and Potential Revolution in Punishment Park and Born in Flames.” UC Irvine Graduate Student Comp Lit Conference. Irvine, CA. May 2022.

“Fag Face Mask: Digital Materialism and Revolutionary Queer Art.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Virtual. March-April 2022.

“Love, Victor and the Politics of Networking Queer Intimacy.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference. Virtual. June 2021.

“Whispers and Shouts: Coming Out and the Social in Mainstream American Film.” Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality Symposium, Miami University. Oxford, OH. February 2019.

“Representations of Queer Urbanity and Resistance of a Heterosexist Public.” Altman Symposium: Urban Futures, Miami University. Oxford, OH. April 2018.

PANELS, ROUNDTABLES, & WORKSHOPS

Panelist. “The Celluloid Closet 30th Anniversary screening.” The Frida Cinema. Santa Ana, CA. June 2026.

Panel chair. “Oppositions at Work: Labor, Technology, and Digital Culture.” Cultural Studies Association Conference. Virtual. May 2026.

Organizer and moderator. “What’s the Use of Scholarly Organizations During Increasingly Precarious Times?” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Chicago, IL. April 2025.

Organizer. “Global Solidarity Town Hall: Across Regions, Social Identities, and Academic Ranks.” Society for Cinema & Media Studies. Boston, MA. March 2024.

Organizer and panelist. “What Do We Want? Graduate Student Organizing and the Contemporary Academic Labor Movement.” Society for Cinema & Media Studies Graduate Student Organization. Denver, CO. April 2023.

Organizer and panelist. “I Am Somebody (1970) Roundtable Discussion.” Cinema & Media Studies Graduate Colloquium, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. October 2022. 

Panelist. “A Roundtable on Labor Actions at Academic Institutions.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Caucus on Class. Virtual. June 2022.

TEACHING

Lecturer, Dartmouth College

Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

WGSS 65.04: Queer Visual Culture

Lecturer, California State University Fullerton

Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies

GSS 105: Introduction to Queer Studies

Teaching Fellow as Principal Instructor, UCLA

Department of Film, Television and Digital Media

 FTV 10A: History of American Television, “Queer TV”

 FTV 495A: Teaching Film & TV

Undergraduate Education Initiatives Cluster Program

10CW: Queer & Trans Digital Media

 M71CW: Posthumanism

Teaching Assistant/Associate/Fellow, UCLA

Department of Film, Television and Digital Media

FTV 4: Introduction to Art and Technique of Filmmaking

FTV 6A: History of the American Motion Picture

FTV 10A: History of American Television

FTV 51: Digital Media Studies

FTV 113: Film Authors

Undergraduate Education Initiatives Cluster Program

M71A/B: Biotechnology & Society

Voices of Discovery Co-facilitator

Miami University, Center for American and World Cultures

BWS 250A: Voices of Discovery: Intergroup Dialogue

GUEST LECTURES

“Kitchencels: I’m Not Here to Make Fun of You.” FTV 51: Digital Media Studies, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. March 2026.

“Todd Haynes & Safe (1995).” FTV 113: Film Authors, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. March 2024.

“Utopia’s Uploading: Cyberqueers, Techno-optimism, and Marxist Method.” Cinema & Media Studies Graduate Colloquium, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. March 2023.

“Queer American Television.” FTV 10A: History of American Television, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. April 2022.

“Digital Queers.” FTV 51: Digital Media Studies, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA. February 2022.

“Love, Victor and the Politics of Networking Queer Intimacy.” Cinema & Media Studies Graduate Colloquium, UCLA. Los Angeles, CA/Virtual. February 2021.

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Graduate Student Researcher, UCLA (Summer 2023)

Support drafting proposal for new Self-Supporting Graduate Degree Program (Master’s in Media Transformation Analysis) in UCLA’s Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.

Summer Research Institute, UCLA Luskin Center for History & Policy (Summer 2021)

            3-day intensive program on historical study’s intersection with public policymaking

SERVICE

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

            Co-chair, Precarious Labor Organization (2023-present)

            Precarious Labor Representative, Caucus on Class (2025-present)

            Caucus on Class Writing Award Jury (2026)

UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television Faculty Executive Board

            Student Representative, Department of Film, Television and Digital Media (2021-2022)

Ad hoc reviewer

            Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies

            Critical Studies in Television

            New Media & Society