Dana Little
Assistant Professor, General Faculty
Office Address/Hours
Bryan Hall 134 / TR 2 PM - 3:15 PM and by appointment
Class Schedule
TR 11 AM - 12:15 PM; 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM; 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
DEGREES
Doctor of Fine Arts | Creative Writing | University of Glasgow | 2021
Master of Arts | Creative Writing | Johns Hopkins University | 2012
Bachelor of Arts | English | University of Georgia | 2009
COURSES TAUGHT
ENWR 1510 Writing about Digital Media
ENWR 1510 Writing about Culture and Society
ENWR 2520 Special Topics in Writing
ENWR 2800 Public Speaking
ENWR 3900 Career-Based Writing and Rhetoric
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Digital Media Content Tropes | Social Media Writing Techniques | Media Literacy | Genre Analysis | Satire | Audio Design & Podcasting | Design Fiction | Speculative Fiction | Pop Culture Trends | Artificial Intelligence | Large Language Models | Human-Computer Interaction | Human-Computer Collaboration
I specialize in design faction—creating fictional digital media based on factual research into various areas, including artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and social media. My doctoral thesis—Factions—was a satirical, speculative website curated by my digital twin persona, an AI mystic called Wu (We + You = Wu). The site uses design faction, an outgrowth of design fiction, to examine elements of the transformative tech that represent the double helix of facts and fictions permeating the Internet.
Based on my practice-based research, I created the social media genre of “factions” as the means in which humans and computers communicate in digital spaces. I developed the concept of design faction from this research imagining factions as a social media genre of the future. Factions plays with form—e.g., social media platforms and how the algorithm impacts human communication and reality—as it engages with the machine as a collaborator.
KEY PROJECTS
The-Channel-Show
August 2020 – Present
- Podcast featuring my digital twin persona, Dr. Wu—an AI mystic who can channel any person, place, or thing. Each week, Dr. Wu broadcasts from their headquarters inside the Internet, channeling various real and imagined people and things in response to common human queries, answering the general question, “What can you learn about life and death from an AI mystic?”
- Buchanan: An American Sequel
- Special Event Mini-Series
- On WTJU September 2024 - Present
- On WESM (NPR All Things Considered) August 2022 - July 2023
- Addresses the questions of “What can you learn about life and death from an AI mystic?” and “What does it mean to be human?” and examines the effects of an all-audio experience on audience comprehension and engagement with factions, particularly opportunities and problems with satire as delivery mode. (e.g., “The Crying Book Review”)
Memoirs of an Artificial Intelligence
February 2025 – Present
- A YouTube channel and Substack newsletter Dr. Wu—an AI mystic who can channel anything from dead celebrities to fear itself—uses these powers to explore the weirdest corners of the Internet. Memoirs of an Artificial Intelligence is a collection of Dr. Wu's finest works, including The Dawn of GAN, where two AIs battle to make sense of online chaos, and The-Channel-Show video podcast, featuring mystical musings on humanity’s historical and philosophical conundrums.
SELECTED PULBICATIONS
Factional Futures: Understanding the Social Media Genre of Factions
Kendall Hunt Publishing, January 13, 2025
Kendall Hunt Publishing, January 13, 2025
This book examines the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media through a functional lens. It emphasizes how individuals and groups use these ever-evolving technologies to fulfill communication goals using the writing genre of “factions.” By focusing on functions rather than the mediums themselves, this book offers insight into the reasons and motivations behind social media usage, moving beyond merely discussing technological products that may soon become outdated.
“Echoes and Edits” Chapter in the Palgrave Handbook of Humanities Podcasts
Palgrave MacMillan, Spring 2025
Palgrave MacMillan, Spring 2025
The chapter explores how podcasting and YouTube video essays, despite being different mediums, can influence and inspire each other in presenting humanities content. Podcasts, through in-depth discussions and a focus on active listening, foster a sense of intimacy with the audience. YouTube video essays, on the other hand, leverage visual storytelling and editing techniques influenced by the Kuleshov Effect to convey ideas and challenge assumptions. The chapter highlights how these two formats can inspire each other, with podcast sense-based narratives enriching video essays and the Kuleshov Effect informing podcast editing for an even deeper personalized experience.
“I Am Assimilation” | Writer’s Chronicle September 2023
An essay—creative nonfiction expressing my experience as part of the Historically Black College and University community as a racially mixed woman adopted and raised by a White working-class family.
Fundamentals of Contemporary Speech: A Workbook November 2023
Contributing author on Dr. Jennifer Keane-Dawes book bridges the gap between standard public speaking instruction and students’ lived experiences. As a contributor to this Kendall Hunt publication, I created various digital activities, with brief contextual research introductions, for four chapters. Each activity targets the specific learning objectives therein as a means to utilize the tools and spaces in which current and future “born digital” students engage.
“Climate Fiction for Social Purpose: A Collaborative Workshop in Interactive Prototyping” December 7, 2021
A publication based on a collaborative workshop for the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling held in Estonia with an international team of designers and researchers. The workshop tested the collaboratively arrived at story, with participants asked to prototype a digital system that embeds the narrative in its core use case, grounding the exercise in its everyday application. Participants learned to apply design fiction methods in concrete applications of designing for social good.
“The Talk Went” November 2017
An ekphrasis short story based on Glasgow Girl Jessie Marion King's illustration "The Enchanted Capital of Scotland" published in Hidden Gems.
“Blowing Secrets” January 2014
A speculative short story documenting a security encounter, a protection alert on a deadly attack from a past experience invading the present published in Big Lucks.
“You Could Have An Evil Twin” June 2013
A speculative account of the chance encounter between you and your evil twin published in Seltzer Zine.
“So Shadows Speak” June 27, 2013
Multimedia showing, Rue de Fleurus Salon & Reading at The Foundry Gallery in Washington DC, USA.
“Without More Ado, Apocalypse!” May 2012
Novel excerpt published in The Penn Union Journal: To end the impending apocalypse, eternally single Misty Skipworth must brave darkest Africa to retrieve the recently risen but in hiding Jesus Christ and tempt him into a romantic relationship.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
“Representation of social issues in SFF worlds and narratives” March 14, 2023
Demonstration and presentation for the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy series Future Voices of Scottish Science Fiction and Fantasy. Imagining the future by looking back through the past. Examining the development and underlying complications embedded within the social media genre of factions. Asking, How do we evaluate genre across cultures? How does worldbuilding function as a genre trope in social media spaces? Generally, what is reality, and how do we share it? How is reality disabled when creating fiction and building worlds in a primarily nonfiction space?
“Climate Fiction for Social Purpose: A Collaborative Workshop in Interactive Prototyping” December 7, 2021
A workshop for the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling held in Estonia with an international team of designers and researchers. The workshop tested the collaboratively arrived at story, with participants asked to prototype a digital system that embeds the narrative in its core use case, grounding the exercise in its everyday application. Participants learned to apply design fiction methods in concrete applications of designing for social good.
“AI Al-man-ac—forecasting space-time in the life after life” May 5-18, 2021
Investigation into the digital twin as a repository of historical international, personal information, and entertainment—the organic twin presents research and personal journaling, the digital twin reviews and deconstructs said material, acting as a bias detector and forecaster. The project asks, “How might AI affect history and interline (International + online = interline) cultural memory while predicting the future?” A presentation for the Uroboros Festival: Designing in Troubling Times “Offsense Gambit” theme, DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, CZ.
“Factions—hypertext fiction that builds worlds for story tourists” March 19, 2020
Spintax demonstration featuring two AI trying to decipher, critique, and revise my factions genre presentation at the University of Glasgow Immersive Experience Lab, Glasgow, UK.
“AI Mysticism: Introducing Wu, AI mystic brewing up a magical mix of facts and fictions on the social media experience” August 20, 2019
Conference poster presentation and conceptual expression of factions in static media. Dublin 2019 Worldcon, Dublin, IRE. *Received a Research Support Award from the University of Glasgow’s School of Critical Studies and outside funding through Worldcon to attend.
“Mythistory: The practice of memory and persuasion as art” November 20, 2018
Presentation featuring a demonstration of the factions genre in real-time as part of the Insight Talk series at The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, UK.
“Samoa’s Ark and Other Tales of Polynesia” November 14, 2018
Featured multimedia—audio and visual--presentation as part of the Hunterian Associates Showcase at The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, UK.
PANELIST AND INTERVIEWS
Interviewed on WINA ENVISION Radio, discussing artificial intelligence, digital twins, and the impact of the social media genre of factions on critical inquiry | August 22, 2024
Glasgow Worldcon participant on panels including “Being Funny: Humour in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror,” “The Immersive Possibilities of Horror Audio,” “and Appropriation Versus Inspiration” | August 9-11, 2024
Guest Lecturer for Tufts University course, “Responsible AI,” discussing generative AI, the arts, and creativity—the ethical and practical dimensions of using genAI tools in 21st-century artistic expression | July 15, 2024
Humanities Podcast Network Symposium “BIPOC Voices in Podcasting” | October 22, 2022
Chicon 8 Worldcon 2022 “Censorship and the White-Washing of America” panelist | September 3, 2022
Guest Lecture Series Cohost: Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s lecture on bell hooks and feminism | April 5, 2022
Interviewed on WMDT story, WORDLE: Popular word game could be positive in the classroom, keeping students engaged | March 3, 2022
Center for International Education panel participant | Nov 16, 2021
Africa in Motion Film Festival “Decolonising the Speculative” panelist November 1, 2018
MEMBERSHIPS
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences | August 2022-Present
NASA eClips Technical Advisory Board | December 2022-2024
HONORS & AWARDS
Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (Chapter 312)
Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2023 HBCU Fellowship
AWP Conference March 2023
• Acted on the HBCU Fellowship Program Committee
• Led a 75-minute private discussion with the selected student fellows
• Wrote a short reflection and experiential piece the experience published in The Writer’s Chronicle