Joelle Renstrom
Senior Lecturer, Rhetoric
Research Interests
The intersection of science fiction and science/technology; cultural and social effects of technology; space exploration; evolution; transhumanism; travelogues; robots and artificial intelligence
Teaching Interests
Communication; rhetoric; writing; science fiction; technology; artificial intelligence; and space exploration
Selected Publications
Book
Closing the Book: Travels in Life, Loss, and Literature (Pelekinesis, 2015)
Articles
Joelle Renstrom maintains an award-winning blog, Could This Happen, about the relationship between science and science fiction. She’s the robot columnist for the Daily Beast and a staff writer for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Her essays have appeared in Slate, Aeon,The Guardian, and others.
Other Professional Activity and/or Awards
TED talk (Science Fiction as a Looking Glass: Teaching Students to Save the World, TEDxWaltham 2017)
Writers’ Room of Boston Non-fiction Fellowship, 2013.
Somerville Arts Council Fellowship Grant, 2012.
Wesleyan Writers’ Conference Scholarship, 2011.