Katherine Buse

Katherine Buse
Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies
Classics 314D

Biography

Katherine Buse uses methods from science and technology studies, science fiction studies, and the environmental humanities to study how science shapes and is shaped by its cultural milieu. She is working on a book project, titled Speculative Planetology: Science, Culture, and the Building of Model Worlds. It describes planetary world building, or speculative planetology, as a set of shared practices built up between planetary and climate scientists, creators of speculative fiction, engineers, and policymakers since the middle of the 20th century.

Katherine also studies and designs video games, including being on the design team for Foldit: First Contact, a new narrative version of the citizen science video game Foldit. She received her Ph.D in English with an emphasis in Science and Technology Studies at the University of California, Davis in 2021. As a Marshall Scholar, she received an MA in Science Fiction Studies at the University of Liverpool and an MPhil in Criticism and Culture at Cambridge.
 

Teaching

Autumn Quarter 2023
CMST 28910: Planetary Media

Winter Quarter 2024
CMST 14578: Media Technologies (offered at the Paris Center through Study Abroad)

Spring Quarter 2024
CMST 40001: Methods and Issues in Media Studies