Author Samantha Close

Samantha Close

Samantha Close is a doctoral candidate in Communication at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include digital media, theory-practice, political economy, fan studies, gender, and race. She focuses particularly on labor and transforming models of creative industries and capitalism. Her documentary “I Am Handmade: Crafting in the Age of Computers,” based on her on-going dissertation work into the economic culture of crafting, is hosted online by Vice Media’s Motherboard channel. Her writing appears in the academic journals Feminist Media Studies, Transformative Works and Cultures, and Anthropology Now as well as in more informal online spaces.

Election-Related Folk Art

Samantha Close

Arts & Culture, Politics & Economics

“Ted Cruz Republican Leading the Fight” from ConservativeArt “Feel the Laser Bern” from DanSchaubDesigns “Women for Hillary jewelry” from slrfreespiritjewelry “Donald Trump...

With Teen Mental Health Deteriorating Over Five Years, There's a Likely Culprit

Racism and the Scourge of Insecurity

Why We’re in Such a Frenzy About Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

I Run ‘Facial Recognition’ on Buildings to Unlock Architectural Secrets

The Weight of the Presidency

Four Crises Facing the President and How History Can Help

Gullibility and the Triumph of the Con-Artists

Is the Era of In-Class Education Coming to an End?

Colonizing Mars Means Contaminating Mars – And Never Knowing For Sure If It Had Its Own Native Life

Jonathan Franzen, Climate Change and the Need for Imagination

UC Berkeley’s David A. Patterson Sees the Future After Moore’s Law

Some Renewable Energy Types Promise a Bright Future. Others are Merely Sci-Fi Fantasy

Author Samantha Close

Samantha Close

Election-Related Folk Art