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Focusing on critical approach does disservice, leads to ‘graduates steeped in ideology,’ education scholar says
The University of California Santa Barbara is seeking an assistant professor to study artificial intelligence through a humanities-based approach focused on “culture, power, embodiment, and meaning-making.”
Because the role is not about the “purely technical” side of artificial intelligence, the department of film and media studies says it seeks “scholars whose work engages AI and media industries through racial, gender, queer, global and/or transnational, environmental, creative, and other critical approaches.”
The department will review the first batch of applicants for the position on Nov. 6.
Responsibilities are typical for a tenure track position, including teaching courses and developing seminars. The university seeks professors with background in “critical” approaches to technology, including “critical algorithm studies.” Other research interests may include “political economy, labor studies, cultural and industrial history, and creative or practice-based research on generative media.”
The position is connected to UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center and its Media Industries and AI Research Initiative, which “has funded fourteen groundbreaking projects from twenty-one scholars who represent universities in fifteen countries and three continents,” according to the center’s website.
One project, led by UCSB scholars Laila Sakr and Cathy Thomas, promotes “feminist and community-centered approaches to AI governance.” The scholars are developing Contrapuntal, a collaborative tool that builds on the R-Shief platform to help users share datasets, AI-generated visualizations and analyses of how knowledge circulates online.
The project also incorporates a Data Feminism Bias Reporting Tool designed to identify omissions and distortions in data. Its planned outcomes include a workshop and a special issue of the journal Kalfou focused on participatory AI development.
The dean of the university’s college of humanities and fine arts, Daina Berry, and the head of the department of film and media studies, Laila Sakr, did not respond to separate emailed requests for comment in the past several weeks.
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow for the Center of Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, criticized the new UCSB position’s emphasis on critical approaches, arguing that universities risk prioritizing ideological perspectives over practical technological skills.
“Public universities continue embedding activist frameworks into technical fields under the label of ‘critical’ scholarship,” DeAngelis told The Fix via text message. “That approach produces graduates steeped in ideology instead of people who can build, evaluate, or responsibly deploy the technology.”
DeAngelis also questioned the expectations of taxpayers and families who support public universities like UCSB.
“Taxpayers fund these institutions, and parents send their kids there expecting education focused on competence and discovery. Hiring for political priorities in AI research wastes both,” he said.
UCSB’s Film and Media Studies department has a longstanding focus on race, gender and sexuality in its study of media and technology.
A fall 2026 course, “Gender and Sexuality in Film,” examines “film theory informed by feminist, queer, and critical race studies,” including topics such as “the male gaze”, “industry inequities” and “New Queer Cinema.”
The department also scheduled “Feminist Media” for winter 2027, a seminar exploring “feminist, queer and decolonial approaches” to media and examining issues such as archival erasure, labor and care.
Earlier course offerings show the department has applied similar perspectives to technology and artificial intelligence.
A fall 2025 course, “Race and/in AI,” examines AI as a tool of “surveillance, policing and racialization” and aims to answer “What, when, and where is race in AI?.”
In spring 2020, the department offered “FemTech Lab,” a seminar focused on “feminism, cyberfeminism and feminist theories of technology,” with projects involving media practice, installations and digital platforms.
