Hello everyone! My name is Anders. I’m a PhD candidate in the anthropology program here at the GC, and I’ll be auditing the ITP Core 2 course this semester. My dissertation research examines masculinity and the phenomenon of “seduction communities,” communities of men including dating coaches and their followers who train each other in social skills to attract women.

Although my research is primarily ethnographic (involving participant observation at training seminars, community meetings, and bootcamps), I’ve become increasingly interested in the capabilities that digital research methods allow for gathering and analyzing data in other formats. I’ve been swimming around in the DH community at the GC for a couple of years now, and from a research perspective I’m specifically interested in natural language processing and network mapping; including things like text-mining and topic modeling the semantic contents of ebooks (of which there are hundreds and hundreds), and also mapping textual features and network relationships among users of anonymous online chatroom forums.

This digital interest has led me to become more interested in interactive technology and pedagogy, both because of the possibilities that technology has in and out of classroom settings and teaching relationships, and also because it relates to the kinds of concerns that my research subjects have about the process of learning, digital social networking, and fashioning identities through digital media that transcends geographical boundaries.