Hi there! I’m James N. Gilmore, Associate Professor of Media and Technology Studies in the Department of Communication at Clemson University.

My research explores the cultural politics of media and communication technologies, especially how they shape what we know about ourselves and how institutions use technologies to learn about people. I’m particularly interested in how everyday devices and platforms operate as powerful tools for producing knowledge, enforcing norms, and shaping identity.

My recent book, Bringers of Order: Wearable Technologies and the Manufacturing of Everyday Life (University of California Press, 2025), is among the first books in communication and in technology studies to focus explicitly on wearable technologies. It examines how devices like smartwatches, fitness tracker, and body cameras reinforce systems of normalcy, surveillance, and solutionism across health, labor, accessibility, law enforcement, and more.

Currently, I am in the early stages of editing The De Gruyter Handbook of Wearable Technologies and Society, which is currently under contract with De Gruyter and will hopefully be published in late 2027. The Handbook will include over 30 researchers from around the world.

You can check out my CV for a full list of my publications. My other major publications include the co-edited anthologies Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (with Matthias Stork; Rowman & Littlefield, 2014) and Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts (with Sydney Gottlieb; Indiana University Press, 2018), as well as a double issue of Cultural Studies focused on infrastructural politics (with Blake Hallinan).

Beyond my teaching and research, I’m a dad to two amazing daughters. I’m a cinephile with a large amount of Criterion Collection editions, I love board games, and I won’t miss an opportunity to sit down to a table to play Magic: The Gathering.