Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Monica Futong Ren is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Her research and teaching interests include film and media theories, psychoanalysis, design culture, built environments, and science and technology studies. Her dissertation examines how ecological thinking has shaped urban and architectural design, media practices, and theories of the subject from the late 19th century to the present. Drawing on philosophy of technology, psychoanalysis, and urban studies, her project traces the migration of ecological concepts from biology and thermodynamics into mid-20th-century cybernetics, systems theory, and environmental design, asking how the perceptions, fantasies, and knowledge of urban environments anchor or un-situate our orientation in the world. She holds an M.A. in Cinema and Media Studies and a B.A. in Visual Arts and Art History from the University of Chicago.