About

Joseph P. Masco is the Samuel N. Harper Professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He earned his PhD from the University of California San Diego in 1999. Masco is a scholar of technoscience, ecology, affect, and social theory, with a long-term focus on technological revolutions and their aftermaths in the United States after 1945. His research explores how technological advancements, particularly within the framework of national security, have reshaped ecological conditions, public perceptions of risk and threat, and concepts of citizenship, race, and futurity. He is the author of a trilogy on US nuclear nationalism and the psychosocial politics of existential danger, including 'The Nuclear Borderlands,' which investigates the long-term effects of the atomic bomb project in New Mexico and its impact on local understandings of risk, ecology, and race during and after the Cold War. His other major works include 'The Theater of Operations,' which studies the transformation of the Cold War national security apparatus into a counterterror state after 2001, and 'The Future of Fallout,' which examines the American relationship with existential danger through the lens of nuclear and climate emergencies. Masco's research has been supported by various foundations and he has held fellowships at prominent institutions. He has served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago from 2019 to 2022 and maintains faculty appointments in multiple university committees and centers.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• History
• Chemistry
• Radiochemistry
• Nuclear engineering
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Fear of a Dead White Planet

  2025-06-26

  bookOpen access

  Contending that contemporary study of the environment can often reproduce the violence it means to address, Fear of a Dead White Planet proposes a methodological shift that is place-based and allows for the conjuring of alternate worlds.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fear of a Dead White Planet

  2025-06-26

  bookOpen access

  Fear of a Dead White Planet asks: How does one study when the planet is on fire? The More Worlds Collective challenges the contemporary rush to planetary technofixes for environmental emergency. Instead, it tracks how such planetary-science frames are enmeshed in the longstanding projects of White Supremacy, settler colonialism, and epistemological violence. Calling for unlearning and joined-up study, the collective reclaims terraforming from off-earth engineering schemes to think through how our more modest efforts to study differently are also world-making and world-breaking. In orienting its work toward terra and formation, the collective commits to a place-based, non universal study scaled at levels both intimate and massive. Through its serious but unruly methods, Fear of a Dead White Planet invites readers to recognize and conjure alternate worlds in and around the university.

  PublisherDOI

• Fear of a Dead White Planet

  2025-01-01

  bookOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• 03 A FALSE FLAG

  2024-02-15 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• EPILOGUE

  2024-02-15

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Response to Matthew Rhodes-Purdy and Rachel Navarre’s review of <i>Conspiracy/Theory</i>

  Perspectives on Politics · 2024-12-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• INTRODUCTION: CONSPIRACY / THEORY

  2024-02-15 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Age of Discontent: Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies. By Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, Rachel Navarre, and Stephen Utych. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 307p. $34.99 paper.

  Perspectives on Politics · 2024-12-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The Age of Discontent: Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies. By Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, Rachel Navarre, and Stephen Utych. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 307p. $34.99 paper. - Volume 22 Issue 4

  PublisherDOI

• Epilogue

  2023-12-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This epilogue to Conspiracy/Theory explores the terms of epistemic crisis in the twenty-first century. Focusing specifically on the January 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, DC, the epilogue reviews the multiple conspiratorial projects that informed that violent event. Tracking the differences between authoritarian practices, white supremacists, QAnon believers, and grifters, it underscores the multiple “reality making” techniques informing contemporary politics. The epilogue also reviews the key arguments of the book and considers how the politicization of narrative functions today.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction: Feeling Unhinged

  2023-03-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa Wedeen

  4 shared

• Vivian Choi

  2 shared

• Jocelyn Lim Chua

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2 shared

• John Borneman

  2 shared

• Jerome Whitington

  New York University

  2 shared

• Austin Zeiderman

  2 shared

• Limor Darash

  2 shared

• Kim Fortun

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• Robert K. Merton Prize from the American Sociological Associ…
• Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for the Social Studies…
• J. I. Staley Prize from the School for Advanced Research
• Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentor…