Research Interests

I recently completed my PhD at the University of Toronto, and am currently working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo as part of the Trust in Research Undertaken in Science and Technology Scholarly Network. Generally, my research focuses on the historical and political dimensions of media technology used for the governance, subjectivation, and surveillance of select populations. My recent work looks at wearable optical media and their role in shaping human conduct in visual information systems, and my co-authored book, Prisonhouse of the Circuit: A Media Genealogy, was published by University of Minnesota Press in 2023.

My current research delves into questions of trust/distrust in AI and wearable media, and considers both information/communication pathways and the materials (emphasis on metals) that play into our relationships with these intimate technologies. You can read more about it here.

Selected Publications

Books

Packer, J., Nuñez de Villavicencio, P., Monea, A., Oswald, K., Maddalena, K., & Reeves, J. Prisonhouse of the Circuit: A Media Genealogy. University of Minnesota Press (2023).

In this book we investigate key points at which analogue information systems were replaced by digital ones to understand how power, information, and subjects are made to circulate. The monograph includes five case studies that explore ​​military telegraphy and human–machine incorporation, the establishment of national electronic biopolitical governance in World War I, media as the means of extending spatial and temporal policing, automobility as the mechanism uniting mobility and media, and visual augmentation from Middle Ages spectacles to digital heads-up displays.

Book Chapters and Sections

Nuñez de Villavicencio, P. “Colour or Greyscale: A Photographer’s Dilemma.” In Show Theory to Know Theory: Understanding Social Science Concepts through Illustrative Vignettes, edited by Patricia Ballamingie and David Szanto. Ottawa, ON: Showing Theory Press, 2022. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/showingtheory/chapter/subjectivity/

Journal Articles

Moriarty, D., Núñez de Villavicencio, P., Black, L., Bustos, M., Cai, H., Mehlenbacher, B., and Mehlenbacher, A. “Durable Research, Portable Findings: Rhetorical Methods in Case Study Research.” Technical Communication Quarterly 28, no. 2 (April 3, 2019): 124–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2019.1588376.