Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Colby College
he/him
Joshua D. Rubin is a socio-cultural anthropologist by training. He teaches at Colby College and his research blends theories of aesthetics and evocation to map a terrain of overlapping significances between sports, art, and media. Frequent themes in his work include the politics of performance, the efficacy of imaginative play, the relationships between analog and digital worlds, creativity and emergence, and anthropological theories of sensory perception.
He is the author of a book about the aesthetic politics of South African rugby (University of Michigan Press, 2021) and has two additional book projects on video game development. His writings have appeared in a number of academic journals, including American Anthropologist, Africa, Cultural Anthropology, and The Information Society. Prior to arriving at Colby in 2025, Dr. Rubin taught for ten years at Bates College, where he won the college’s Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Talks
What’s New About Our Newest Media?
From social media to AI to streaming video, “new media” seems to be everywhere. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and confused by it all. But what is actually new about new media? Is it the speed? The possibility for disinformation? The global connectivity? The loss of certainty about what is true and real? The implications for surveillance and profiling? This talk cuts through the noise. We put debates about our newest media into broader context and find that, in many ways, the media may be new but the way we use and understand those media are not. This presentation separates the realities of new media from the rhetoric, the novel challenges from our oldest stories and anxieties. Audiences leave with a toolkit of strategies to help orient themselves in a disorienting media landscape.
How Video Games Work
This presentation introduces the complexities of video games as a medium. Its goal is to prepare audiences to think carefully and critically about video games they encounter in the world and to better identify how games interact with, and work on, their players. Some topics considered in this presentation include video game violence, accessibility in gaming, game design and game mechanics, and the politics of representation in video game worlds.
The Politics of Rugby in South Africa
Viewers of the film “Invictus” will know something of the political importance of rugby in South Africa, particularly its role in the country’s transition to a non-racial democracy. This presentation, based on over 10 years of research, adds significant complexity to this story. It takes rugby’s significance beyond flags, anthems, and political leaders and into the lives of South Africans who viewed rugby as a core part of their struggle against white supremacy and who continue to find political meanings in rugby today, in South Africa’s post-apartheid present.
Structures of Feeling: Understanding the Feelings That Shape our Choices and the Choices that Shape our Feelings
It is widely recognized that we are presently living through a moment of profound social upheaval. What does this moment feel like and how do our feelings of this moment shape our behavior? In this presentation, socio-cultural anthropologist Josh Rubin introduces participants to an exciting concept in social theory called ‘structures of feeling’–simply put, how the conditions in which we live produce patterns in our feelings and emotions. With the aid of straightforward examples and comprehensible language, this presentation will show how attendees can use this concept to name their feelings more precisely, identify the social conditions that produce those feelings, and to act more intentionally in response to those feelings when they are felt. This presentation is an extended version of one that was given at the Maine Humanities Council’s 2024 Big Question event.