Department of English
Department of English
Kirschenbaum

Matthew Kirschenbaum

Professor of English
Email: mgk3k@virginia.edu
Office Address/Hours

Wednesdays 10-12 Bryan 304-A and Zoom by appointment

Class Schedule
W 2:00-4:30

Bio

Matthew Kirschenbaum (GSAS ‘99) rejoins UVA as Commonwealth Professor* of AI and English after almost 25 years at the University of Maryland, where he finished as a Distinguished University Professor. He considers himself a student of texts and textual technologies in all their social and material forms, and his scholarship and teaching have explored literary intersects with printing and bookmaking, archival science, media archaeology, digital humanities, and now artificial intelligence.

He is the author of three books, most recently Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage from the University of Pennsylvania Press (2021). His first book, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (2008) was the winner of multiple awards, including the MLA Prize for a First Book. Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (2016) enjoyed widespread public media attention. Recent articles have appeared in PMLA, Critical Inquiry, and ELH; and he frequently writes for popular outlets, which have included the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Kirschenbaum is an active member of the Modern Language Association’s task force on AI in Research and Teaching, and a member of the teaching faculty at Rare Book School. He has been a Guggenheim and an NEH Fellow.

Current writing includes two books, the first on the political economy of text in the present moment and the second on the weaponization of AI in what some have called a full-blown epistemic crisis. Matthew looks forward to meeting and working with students interested in textual and media studies, experimental literature, book history, DH, and of course AI. He is a practicing letterpress printer. You can find him on Bluesky at @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social. 

*Pending BoV approval. 

 

Books

 

Recent Articles and Chapters 

 

Selected White Papers and Reports 

Selected Awards and Honors 

  • Honorable Mention, 2021 N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature, Electronic Literature Organization. 

  • Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation, 2011. 

  • 16th Annual Prize for a First Book, Modern Language Association of America, 2009. 

  • George A. and Jean S. DeLong Book History Book Prize, Society for the History of Authorship, Publishing, and Reading, 2009. 

  • Biannual Richard J. Finneran Book or Edition Prize, Society for Textual Scholarship, 2009. 

  • Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2005.  

  • Fredson Bowers Memorial Prize for Outstanding Essay on Textual Scholarship, Society for Textual Scholarship, 2002-2003. 

 

Selected Lectures 

  • The 23rd Donald F. McKenzie Lecture, “The New Nature of the Book: Publishing and Printing in the Post-Digital Present,” University of Oxford (May 2023). 

  • “Spec Acts: Reading Abstract Realism,” The English Institute, University of Chicago (October 2019).

  • The Brownell Lecture in the History of the Book, “Post Scripts: Bookmaking After Adobe,” Iowa Center for the Book, University of Iowa (April 2018). 

  • The Fales Lecture, “Bookish Media: The Story of S.,” New York University (April 2016). 

  • The A. S. W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography (three lectures), “Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage,” University of Pennsylvania (March 2016). 

  • “Operating Systems of the Mind,” Annual Address to the Bibliographical Society of America, New York (January 2014). 

 

Selected Professional Service 

  • Appointed Member, MLA Task Force on AI in Research and Teaching (2025-). 

  • Appointed Member, AAUP Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions (2024-). 

  • Appointed Member, MLA/CCCC Task Force on AI and Writing Technologies (2023-2025). 

  • Chair, Board of Directors, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (2021-2025). 

  • Advisory Board, Modern Language Quarterly (2021-). 

  • Advisory Board, Elements in Digital Literary Studies, eds. Katherine Bode, Adam Hammond, Gabriel Hankins, Cambridge University Press (2020-). 

  • Advisory Board, Book History (2019-). 

  • Advisory Board, Page and Screen: New Perspectives in Book Studies, ed. Katherine Eichhorn, University of Massachusetts Press (2019-).  

  • Editorial Board, ROMchip: A Journal of Game History (2016-). 

 

Public Writing (Samples)