Professor Dan Schiller to retire May 31

Dan Schiller
Dan Schiller, Professor Emeritus

Professor Dan Schiller, who has been a member of the GSLIS faculty since 2001, will retire from the University of Illinois on May 31.

"GSLIS has been my home for thirteen years. The cooperative spirit of the School, which staff, faculty members, and school administrators actively create day to day, has been an inspiration to me. Going forward, I plan to pursue my research in the political economy of information and in telecommunications history, and I hope to continue to teach in GSLIS and to supervise doctoral students as an emeritus professor," Schiller said.

A historian of information and communications, Schiller brought to GSLIS expertise in the areas of telecommunications history, information policy, and the cultural production and political economy of capitalism. He taught courses on these topics at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

"It has been a very great privilege for GSLIS to have had Dan Schiller here on the faculty," said Interim Dean Allen Renear. "Dan's relentless probing analysis of trends in information and communication policies are known around the world, and here at the University his engaging teaching is legendary. We are very sorry that we may be seeing a little less of him, of course, but we are pleased that he will be staying involved in GSLIS—his work, both research and teaching, is vital to understanding and addressing the pressing problems facing us today."

The author of half a dozen books and many research articles, Schiller has written extensively on the development and current structure of digital capitalism—the system of market relationships that is predicated increasingly on networks. His recent research focuses on the role of information and communications in today's financial/economic crisis and on the history of U.S. telecommunications infrastructures.

Currently, Schiller serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly publications: tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique; Global Media and Communication; Chinese Journal of Communication; Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media; and Television & New Media. In addition, he is coediting an upcoming University of Illinois Press book series, Geopolitics of Information.

Since 2001, Schiller has held a concurrent appointment as professor in the Department of Communication within the University of Illinois’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His previous appointments include professorships at Wuhan University; the University of California, San Diego; the University of California, Los Angeles; and Temple University. He also has held positions at Columbia University and the University of Leicester. Schiller earned a PhD in communications at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in 1978, a master’s in communications at Penn in 1976, and bachelor’s in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in 1972.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Campus-community partnership launches new maker-in-residence program

A new program co-led by the Champaign-Urbana Community (CUC) Fab Lab aims to bridge and enhance the creative capabilities of local maker communities. The Champaign County Community (CCC) Maker-in-Residence Program was recently awarded a $29,293 grant through the Campus-Community Compact to Accelerate Social Justice initiative in the Office of Public Engagement.

Cu Community Fab Lab

Smith authors paper for newly relaunched ARIST

A paper by Professor Emerita Linda C. Smith, "Reviews and Reviewing: Approaches to Research Synthesis," is one of seven papers included in the relaunch of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), a collection of peer-reviewed, comprehensive, and systematic reviews on topics relevant to information science.

Linda C. Smith

Knox named to IJIDI editorial board

Associate Professor Emily Knox has been invited to join the editorial board of The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI). The quarterly, open-access online journal is sponsored by East Carolina University and the University of Toronto and hosted on the servers of the University of Toronto Library.

Emily Knox

iSchool projects receive campus funding to address racism and social justice

Three of the twelve projects that recently received funding through the Chancellor's Call to Action Research Program to Address Racism and Social Justice are led or co-led by iSchool researchers. The program is a $2 million annual commitment by the University of Illinois to respond to the critical need for universities across the nation to prioritize research focused on systemic racial inequities and injustices that exist not only in communities but in higher education itself.

Anita Say Chan