Dissertation Working Title:  Blogging in China: Critical Intellectuals, the Production of 'CybUrban' Spaces of Dissent in Beijing, and Societal Transformation in China

Born into a twentieth century Munich, I always loved exploring faraway lands. My latest home was China where I lived for four years and completed a graduate program at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center during 2001-2002. In order to follow his quest for knowledge, I cheerfully accepted the most generous funding I was offered by the University of Southern California and moved on to Los Angeles in 2003. Although L.A. is a fascinating place for anyone interested in the complex struggles within which material cultures are produced, I decided to delve deeper into issues around the development of an Internet culture and civil sphere in China.

I am dying to know more about 'shared meanings' and how these continue to thrive in our increasingly fragmented world, influence our capacity to think freely and encourage political interest and intentional action. In my explorations, I constantly looks for new ways of seeing that enable me to unearth stuff that gets lost in the dominant production of knowledge. My interests include social theory, cultural and experimental geographies, the intersection between social science and artistic expression, and related interdisciplinary studies pertaining to globalization, information and communication technologies, and China.
 
My favorite pastime activities are exploratory trips into the world outside my little “writer’s retreat” and daydreaming about what the future might hold.

For further information, please come back later or contact me at marolt [at] usc [dot] edu

(C) 2008