D.E. Wittkower is a Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University, where he teaches on philosophy of technology, cybersecurity, and information ethics. In addition to being Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sociotechnical Critique, he is editor or author of six books on philosophy for a general audience, and author or coauthor of forty-seven book chapters and journal articles. He has also written for Slate, Speakeasy, and Passcode, and has recorded a dozen audiobooks that, combined, have been accessed over a million times.
His research focuses on and branches out from the intersection of phenomenology of technology and feminist ethics of care, and focuses on a postphenomenology of technologically mediated care. He has published work on topics including discrimination in design, informational economies of care, self and self-performance on Facebook, friendship online, the function and value of boredom on SNS, the role of the cute in digital culture, the phenomenology of audiobooks, the Occupy movement, ethics of care and employee loyalty, exploitation and community in crowdfunding, the crisis in copyright, and technological influences in the construction of white male normativity. He has served as PI and Senior Personnel on multiple grants, in which he has developed and delivered instructional resources on cybersecurity ethics. His current work concerns disability, trust, privacy, and the Internet of Things.
He received a Ph.D in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University in 2006, where his training concentrated on German philosophy and the history of value theory (ethics, aesthetics, social/political philosophy), but also included training in Pragmatist and Analytic philosophical traditions. He is Phi Beta Kappa (1997), and was given the 2011 Award for Distinguished Teaching by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (Coastal Carolina University).
Professional affiliations: American Philosophical Association (Member, Committee on Philosophy and Computers), Society for Philosophy and Technology, Association of Internet Researchers.
Contact: dwittkow [at] odu [dot] edu