About 

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Kathryn Brewster is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan School of Information on the lands of the diverse Anishinaabeg people, the Odawa, and Potawatomi. There, she works with Dr. Oliver Haimson to examine and develop technologies to better serve marginalized people.

Kat’s research focuses on how the internet gets remembered and who gets forgotten, with a specific focus on LGBTQ+ internet histories and their records. Her current research project looks at the archives and afterlives of computer bulletin board systems by and for LGBTQ+ people and people with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s, highlighting the communities they built to make life worth living. She has expertise in critical, qualitative research methodologies such as archival analyses (including critical

digital archive studies), critical technocultural/discourse analysis, ethnographic analysis, reflexive thematic analysis, conducting semistructured interviews, and image elicitation (especially maps, zines, and collage). Kat’s work on developing content moderation strategies during the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States was recognized with the Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award for 2024.

In a past life, Kat was a videogame and digital culture writer, focusing on the study of videogame / livestreaming cultures, videogame modding communities, and indie game production. Over time, her other work has appeared in places like The Guardian, VICE, PC Gamer, and Defector, the arts and videogame publications Read Only Memory and A Profound Waste of Time, the arts festivals Now Play This in London and Feral Vector in the Yorkshire countryside, Video Brains in London pubs, the Feminist Cyber Cafe at the Showroom Gallery, the Victoria and Albert museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Kat also ran a (pretty well regarded) weekly column about all the weird, wonderful, free games on the internet over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun from 2018 to 2020.

Personal website

Book project

Surviving Online: The queer digital archive

Abstract

The timeline for the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States occurred parallel to the rise in access to personal computers. For people disproportionately affected by the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially LGBTQ+ communities, this shift toward personal computing and networking proved vital for organizing, exchanging lifesaving information, shaping biomedical discourse, and fostering emotional connections with others. As the epidemic progressed and computers became increasingly central to everyday life, the demands of computer maintenance, nascent digital recordkeeping methodologies, and a significant loss of life rendered many of these critical contributions to the history of computing lost or fragmented.

My book, Surviving Online, is a sustained archival analysis into HIV/AIDS digital cultures and LGBTQ+ life from 1977-1996. I use the book to tell two simultaneous stories: First, I demonstrate how communities used computers to exchange lifesaving information, forge vital social bonds, combat mis/disinformation, and shape biomedical discourse at the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. during the domestic shift in personal computing. Second, I critically examine the digital/analog archives and collections that house this material, arguing for a more dynamic account of digital history writ large. Overall, I use this work to demonstrate not only that a diverse history of computing enriches how computing and the internet are understood today, but to guide how we might develop, design, and build more equitable technologies of the future.

Fields of interest

Computer history, LGBTQIA+ history, digital archives, DIY networking, BBSs, online communities, value-focused design, physical media

Education

PhD, University of California, Irvine, 2023

Selected publications

Under Review: Kat Brewster, Aloe DeGuia, Samuel Mayworm, F. Ria Khan, Mel Monier, Denny Starks, and Oliver Haimson. "That Moment of Curiosity": Augmented Reality Face Filters for Transgender Identity Exploration, Gender AfNirmation, and Radical Possibility. Venue omitted for review.

Forthcoming: Kat Brewster. ‘the Nlames are 50/50 right now’: Content moderation practices at the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States (1982-1990). The Journal of Internet Histories. 2025. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2024.2416296. Winner: Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award 2024

Forthcoming: Kat Brewster. Network breakdown: The queer anarchist politics at the heart of the ‘net from FidoNet to HOMOCORE. The Journal of Internet Histories. 2025. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2024.2424609.

2024: Oliver L. Haimson, Aloe DeGuia, Rana Saber, and Kat Brewster. 2024. Extended Reality Trans Technologies: Bridging Digital and Physical Worlds to Support Transgender People. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 8, CSCW2, Article 433 (November 2024), 27 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3686972.

2022: Amanda L. L. Cullen, Rainforest Scully-Blaker, Ian R. Larson, Kat Brewster, Ryan Rose Aceae, and William Dunkel. 2022. “Game Studies, Futurity, and Necessity (or the Game Studies Regarded as Still to Come).” Critical Studies in Media Communication 39 (3): 201–10. doi:10.1080/15295036.2022.2080845.

2020: Kathryn Brewster and Bo Ruberg. 2020. “SURVIVORS: Archiving the History of Bulletin Board Systems and the AIDS Crisis”. First Monday 25 (10). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i10.10290.

2019: Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen, and Kathryn Brewster. 2019. “Nothing but a ‘Titty Streamer’: Legitimacy, Labor, and the Debate over Women’s Breasts in Video Game Live Streaming.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 36 (5): 466–81. doi:10.1080/15295036.2019.1658886.