Internationally renowned science fiction writer, technology blogger, activist, and public intellectual Cory Doctorow has been appointed as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University for a six-year term (2024-30) in the field of Arts. Raymond Craib (Professor in the Department of History) and Suman Seth (Professor, Science and Technology Studies) will serve as Doctorow’s faculty host and co-host, respectively.

Doctorow is widely recognized for his extensive contributions to, and advocacy in, the arena of digital rights discourse, particularly as it relates to digital sovereignty and emerging AI. An author of over 20 books, both in fiction and non-fiction, Doctorow served as co-editor, andcurrent co-owner, of one of the earliest and most successful blogs, Boing Boing, a digital nucleus intermixing themes of technology, futurism, science fiction, and intellectual property.

Doctorow serves as a Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international, non-profit digital rights group. He is also recognized for his work in webcomicXKCD, a platform incorporating humor and illustrations as methods to make complex scientificconcepts more accessible to a broader audience.

Doctorow holds an honorary doctorate in laws from York University (Canada) and an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor. He is also a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. In 2024, the Media Ecology Association awarded him the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. In 2022, he earned the Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Awardee for lifetime achievement. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

His recent books include THE BEZZLE (a followup to RED TEAM BLUES), THE LOST CAUSE, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency; THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual (2023); RED TEAM BLUES, an anti-finance finance thriller (2023); CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM (with Rebecca Giblin) (2022), a nonfiction book about creative labor markets and monopoly; ATTACK SURFACE (2020), a standalone sequel to LITTLE BROTHER intended for adults, POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER, a picture book for young children (2020), the nonfiction tech/politics book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM (2020), RADICALIZED (2019) and WALKAWAY (2017), science fiction for adults; and IN REAL LIFE, a young adult graphic novel created with Jen Wang (2014).

His New York Times Bestseller LITTLE BROTHER was published in 2008. In 2023, Verso published THE INTERNET CON, a nonfiction book about monopoly and radical interoperability. Also in 2023, Tor Books published another more science fiction novels for adults called THE LOST CAUSE. His latest short story collection is WITH A LITTLE HELP, available in paperback, ebook, audiobook and limited edition hardcover. In 2011, Tachyon Books published a collection of his essays, called CONTEXT: FURTHER SELECTED ESSAYS ON PRODUCTIVITY, CREATIVITY, PARENTING, AND POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY (with an introduction by Tim O’Reilly) and IDW published a collection of comic books inspired by his short fiction called CORY DOCTOROW’S FUTURISTIC TALES OF THE HERE AND NOW. THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL TOMORROW, a PM Press Outspoken Authors chapbook, was also published in 2011.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, and serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Clarion Foundation, the Open Technology Fund and the Metabrainz Foundation. He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net.

The Professors-at-Large Program at sponsors outstanding scholars and public intellectuals in the life sciences, physical sciences, humanities, social sciences and the arts. Previous professors-at-large include writer and actor John Cleese, primatologist Jane Goodall, jazz great Wynton Marsalis and novelist Toni Morrison, M.A. ’55.

Twice during their terms, professors-at-large visit campus for about a week while classes are in session to interact with the Cornell community under a single mandate: to enliven the intellectual and cultural life of the university.

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