Jeremy Packer

Specialization: Media History; Mobility Studies;  Military and Autonomous Technologies;  Media Theory; Cultural Studies.

Degrees & Institutions
Ph.D. University of Illinois, MA University of Illinois, BA Summa Cum Laude, DePaul University

Recent Courses
CCT 109 Contemporary Communication Technologies
CCT 495 Drones, Robots, and Artificial Intelligence
INF 3009 Theory and History of Media Technology

Research Interests
Dr. Packer investigates the historical and political dimensions of media technologies.  In particular, his research investigates how the automation, militarization, and mobilization of media technologies are used for governance, surveillance, and political control.

• Media History
• Mobilities
• Media and Communication Theory
• History and Philosophy of Technology

Research
Dr. Jeremy Packer Killer Apps: War, Media, Machine (Duke, 2020), a book co-authored with Joshua Reeves, will be published in February. It provides a critical investigation into the historical interconnections between military strategy and the technical innovation of media systems. It argues that the form of current political struggles taking place via media is technologically rooted in military logics of warfare. Jeremy is completing a collectively authored book, PrisonHouse of the Circuit: A Media Genealogy, which was presented in May at the UTM Media Genealogy Graduate Workshop. As Associate Dean, Graduate, Jeremy established a series of Graduate Research Workshops at UTM on a range of interdisciplinary topics from AI to the Arctic to Sustainability.

Publications
Books

Packer, Jeremy and Joshua Reeves. (2020) Killer Apps: War, Media, Machine, Duke University Press, Durham NC (296 p.)

Packer, Jeremy and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley, eds. (2012) Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility, and Networks. Routledge, New York. (297 p.)

Packer, Jeremy ed. (2009) Secret Agents: Popular Icons Beyond James Bond. Peter Lang, New York. (212 p.)

Packer, Jeremy. (2008) Mobility Without Mayhem: Cars, Safety and Citizenship. Duke University Press, Durham, NC. (360 p.)  Winner of the 2008 Book of the Year, Critical and Cultural Division of the National Communication Association.

Packer, Jeremy and Craig Robertson, eds. (2006) Thinking With James Carey: Essays on Communications, Transportation, History. Peter Lang, New York. (234 p.)

Bratich, Jack, Jeremy Packer, and Cameron McCarthy, eds. (2003) Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality. SUNY Press, Albany. (369 p.)

Articles and Book Chapters
Duffy, Brooke and Jeremy Packer. (Forthcoming) "WifeSaver: Tupperware and the Unfortunate Spoils of Containment." In S. Sharma and R. Singh eds. MsUnderstanding McLuhan. Duke University Press.   

Packer, Jeremy and Josh Reeves. (Forthcoming) “Perfect Incommunicability: War and the strategic paradox of human machine communication.” In A. Guzman, S. Jones, and R. McEwen eds. The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication. SAGE.

Packer, Jeremy and Josh Reeves. (2020) "Making enemies with media." Communication and the Public. Vol. 5, (1-2), p 16-25.

Packer, Jeremy and Josh Reeves.  (2017) “Taking People Out: Drones, Media/Weapons, and the Coming Humanectomy.”  In L. Parks and C. Kaplan eds.  Life in the Age of Drones.  Duke University Press. (261-281)

Packer, Jeremy and Alex Monea, Special Issue Eds. (2016) “Media Genealogy.” International Journal of Communication.

Monea, Alex and Jeremy Packer. (2016) “"Media Genealogy and the Politics of Archaeology."  International Journal of Communication. Vol. 10, p 3141-3159.

Packer, Jeremy and Peter Galison. (2016) “Abstract Materialism: Peter Galison Discusses Foucault, Kittler, and the History of Science and Technology.” International Journal of Communication. Vol. 10, 3160-3173.

Maddalena, Kate and Jeremy Packer. (2014) “The Digital Body: Telegraphy as Discourse Network.” Theory Culture & Society. Winner of the 2014 James W. Carey Media Research Award competition sponsored by the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research

Packer, Jeremy. (2013). “The Conditions of Media’s Possibility: Foucault and Media History.” In J. Nerone, ed. Media History and the Foundations of Media Studies. Blackwell, New York. (88-121)

Reeves, Josh and Jeremy Packer. (2013) “Police Media: The Governance of Territory, Speed, and Communication.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 10. no. 4.

Packer, Jeremy. (2013) “Screens in the Sky: SAGE, surveillance, and the automation of perceptual, mnemonic, and epistemological labor.” Social Semiotics, vol. 23, no. 2, 173-195.

Packer, Jeremy. (2013) “Epistemology Not Ideology OR Why We Need New Germans.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 10, no. 2. (online July 11, 2013, 295-300).

Packer, Jeremy and Josh Reeves. (2013) "Romancing the Drone: Military Desire and Anthropophobia from SAGE to Swarm." Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 38. no. 3, 309-331.

Packer, Jeremy and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley (2012) “Strategies for Materializing Communication.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 107-113.

Packer, Jeremy and Stephen Wiley, Special Issue Eds. (2010) “Communication and Mobility.”  The Communication Review, vol 13, no. 4.

Packer, Jeremy and Kathleen Oswald. (2010) “From Windscreen to Widescreen: Screening Technologies and Mobile Communication.” The Communication Review, vol. 13, no. 4, 309-339.

Packer, Jeremy. (2006) “Becoming Bombs: Mobilizing Mobility in the War of Terror.” Cultural Studies, vol. 20, no. 4-5, pp. 371-399.