Series Editor
Jordan Frith, Clemson University

THE X-SERIES publishes accessible, engaging, concise books that present focused analyses or stories of a specific technology or technology-related topic. The books in the series are elegantly designed and written for a general audience to encourage readers to think differently about technologies (broadly defined). The series also features a variety of perspectives on technology-mediated innovations, processes, or interfaces without being wedded to a particular disciplinary tradition or polemic. In other words, X-Series books elaborate more than argue.

An X-Series book might include cultural analyses of a specific technology, ranging from the familiar to the emergent, from the pencil to the blockchain. The X-Series is also open to focused explorations of specific moments in a technology’s history that reinterpret, elaborate, or transform its significance. Such moments might include, for example, key decisions that shaped the future of the Internet or the 3G auctions that later shaped the smartphone revolution. Ultimately, the X-Series takes an intentionally broad approach to what technology means and encourages authors to focus on anything from concepts to moments to specific material forms. What unites all the books in the series is a desire to write for wide audiences and to embrace the power writing has to illuminate the technologies that shape our lives.

Sample Topics

• Historical technologies (e.g., the typewriter, the telegraph, the punch card)
• “Ordinary” technologies (e.g., the smartphone, social media, pens and paper)
• Emergent technologies (e.g., augmented or virtual reality, algorithms, the blockchain, NFTs, artificial intelligence, the metaverse)
• Key historical moments (e.g., the mobile app revolution, the space race and the growth of GPS)
• Concepts and rhetorics of technology (e.g., determinism, cybernetics, mixed reality, new media)

Series Advisory Board

• Colin Charlton, University of Texas Rio Grande, USA
• Donnie Johnson Sackey, University of Texas at Austin, USA
• Didem Özkul, Bilkent University, Turkey
• Jason Farman, University of Maryland, USA
• Laura Gonzales, University of Florida, USA
• Michael Saker, City University of London, England
• Jennifer Sano-Franchini, West Virginia University, USA
• Adriana de Souza e Silva, North Carolina State University, USA
• Emily van der Nagel, Monash University, Australia
• Annette Vee, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Jordan Frith (x-series@parlorpress.com).

Your proposal should follow the guidelines here:

About the Editor

Jordan Frith (he/him) is the Pearce Professor of Professional Communication at Clemson University. His primary research focuses on mobile media and communication infrastructure. He is the author of three books and has two more books currently under contract. He has published more than thirty-five peer-reviewed journal articles in a variety of disciplines, including communication studies, technical communication, media studies, and geography. He has also published in public venues like Salon, Slate, and The Conversation.  He loves dogs.

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