About Rob Thomas

Email:

theory@sfsu.edu

Phone:

(415) 338-1159

Title: 

Lecturer

Department: 

Humanities DepartmentCollege of Liberal and Creative Arts

Building: 

Humanities (HUM)

 HUM 416

Office Hours (Additional Info): 

Online

 

Website(s):

Porn Studies, Philosophy of Rick and Morty , Invisible SF: A History of the Present, Melodrama and Apparatus, Modern Revolution, Thought and Image, Ecstasy of the Angels, Imagine the Political , Images of Eroticism, Neoliberalism and Education, Apocalypse Melodrama, Values in American Life

At SF State Since:

1998 Photo below: Motorcycle on a garage door, SOMA, taken by Dr. Thomas

Bio:

bike graffiti soma​

 

My courses are broadly concerned with the relationship between contemporary culture and the history of Western philosophy, with particular emphasis on theories of the image, affect, porn studies, cinema, modernism/modernity, San Francisco, gender, sexuality, critical race theory, and political economy. 

 

I am the author of User's Guide to Pornography (forthcoming from Zero Books). I studied with Giorgio Agamben in the seminars on The Time that Remains (Il tempo che resta). My dissertation, Broken: Thought-Images of Life in the State of Exception (2005), explored affect in relation to the state of exception, with emphasis on cinema, apocalypse, modernism/modernity, sexuality and spectacle. 

 

I hold a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Program in Philosophy, Literature, and the Theory of Criticism (PLC) at the State University of New York at Binghamton (2005), a MA in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Binghamton (2004), a MA in Humanities from San Francisco State University (2000) and a BA in Liberal Arts (with emphasis in critical social theory) from The Evergreen State College (1997).

 

Expired Polaroid Photo of Dr. Thomas by Todd Duane Miller © 2015

Bike Graffiti in SOMA Photo by Dr. Thomas © 2013

 

Website: https://theorist.io

Teaching Portfolio: https://theorist.io

 

Spring 2020 Courses

HUM HUM 376-03 / HUM 376-04 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism (online)

 

Fall 2019 Courses

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism, HUM-01/HUM-03 (online)

HUM 225-01 Values in American Life (online)

HUM 220 Values and Culture T/T 2:00 - 3:15 PM, HUM 582

 

Spring 2019 Courses

HUM 376-01/376-02 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 Images of Eroticism (online)

HUM 425 Thought and Image T/TH 9:30 – 10:45 am

 

Fall 2018 Courses

HUM 376-01 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390-01 / 390-02  Images of Eroticism (online)

HUM 425 Thought and Image (online)

 

Summer 2018 Courses

HUM 376-01 San Francisco: Biography of a City (online)

HUM 390 Images of Eroticism (online)

 

Spring 2018 Courses

HUM 425 Thought and Image

HUM 390 Images of Eroticism (online)