Queer Theory Resources for Designers

Special thanks

To Erika Hall, whose rallying cry when we worked together at Mule Design was often, “Reject the framing!”

It’s through this admonishment equally helpful managing client feedback as it was arguing with techbros, that I learned just how much influence discursive framing can have over the final decisions being made.

Although this experience didn't fit into the flow or time limitations of the talk, the talk wouldn't exist without it.

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Books

• Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant.
  A thorough telling of the Luddite movement and the political moment in which it happened with clear ties to how this dynamic is playing out in the modern tech industry
• FutureGood: How to use futurism to save the world, Trista Harris.
  An alternative, optimistic version of futurism, with tactics for thinking about the future to inform constructive action today
• Futurism: A Very Short Introduction, Ara H. Merjian.
  The title says it all—an approachable overview of the Italian Futurist movement, including examination of its ties to fascism
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, Jason Stanley.
  ‍An overview of the pillars of fascist philosophies, which leverage the framing of history, intellectualism, identity, and gender to propagandize the public
• Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag.
  Reflections on the ways metaphors used to describe diseases can create stigma and harm the outcomes of those experiencing them

• The Medium is the Massage, Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore.
  ‍Influential piece of media criticism that examines the way the technology that conveys information can be more influential on the receivers’ understanding of the world than the content itself

• The Eye of the Master, Matteo Pasquinelli.
  A social history of AI that looks at the cultural concepts and labor practices that led to AI as we understand it today
• The Real World of Technology, Ursula Franklin.
  A history of technology and society’s reciprocal relationship and how changes in one have influenced the other
• Ways of Seeing, John Berger.
  Art criticism with a feminist lens, including insights on the way subjects are framed changes their interpretation

Podcasts

• Futurism, Arts & Ideas, February 03, 2022.
  ‍A discussion about Marinetti, Futurism, and fascism
• "AI" Agents, A Single Point of Failure, Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, April 17, 2025
  A conversation with Margaret Mitchell about the hype around agents that includes discussion about the implications of anthropomorphic language used to describe AI
• The Techno-Optimism of Marc Andreessen, Ones and Tooze, November 17, 2025
  Critique of Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto, which includes comparisons to the Futurist Manifesto and the way futurism’s ties to fascism is reflected in today’s tech policy
• Susan Sontag: How Much Is Your View Of Everything Affected By Metaphors?, Philosophize This! April 05, 2024
  Reflection on how metaphor informs the way we see the world with discussion of Susan Sontag’s philosophy on the subject
• What the Industrial Revolution Teaches Us About the AI Revolution, What’s Your Problem, September 20, 2023
  What we can learn about AI through the lens of the Industrial Revolution

Quoted & Paraphrased

• Alan Turing
  “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be”
• A.N. Whitehead
  “The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.”
• Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
  “We intend to sing to the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness. Courage, boldness, and rebelliousness will be the essential elements of
  our poetry.”
• Karl Marx
  “It is not what is made but how, and by what instruments of labour, that distinguishes different economic epochs.”
• Lorraine Daston
  “Rules became mechanical before they could actually be executed by machines.”
• Marc Andreessen
  “We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being. We have the tools, the systems, the ideas. We have the will.”
  
  “Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown.”
• Marshall McLuhan
  “When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?”
• Robert M. Entman
  “The power of a frame can be as great as that of language itself.”
• Simon Schaffer
  “To make machines look intelligent it was necessary that the sources of their power, the labor force which surrounded and ran them, be rendered invisible.”
• William Cooke Taylor
  “I regard the Factory System as un fait accompli….The Factory System originated in no preconceived plan – it sprang from no sudden exercise of wisdom, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, but it was formed and shaped by the irresistible force of circumstances.”
• William Gibson
  “The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.”