Walter Goettlich (he/him)

Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology

Education

Ph.D., Sociology, University of Kansas

Dissertation: “How We Learned to Trust Technique and Forget the Bomb Exists: Propaganda, Technology as Magic, and Socially Organized Denial in American Nuclear Consciousness (1945-2025)”  

M.A., Sociology, Concordia University

B.A., Honours Sociology, Concordia University

Research Interests

How do we adapt ourselves to the demands of a profoundly technological society? What are the social, cultural, and biophysical consequences of those adaptations?

In the broadest sense, I am interested in understanding how the ways we think about, talk about, and live through our technological entanglements inform how we make sense of history and contemporary social reality. Much public discourse treats the development and operation of technical systems unproblematically: as an economic necessity, an inevitability of ‘progress,’ or simply ‘the way things are now,’ among other perspectives. Yet, the reality is that every technical system (to date) has been developed by socially-situated humans; consequently, each carries in it, to greater and lesser degrees, the traces, artifacts, and politics of human engagement at play outside of the system itself. My substantive research areas form an interdisciplinary constellation, incorporating perspectives from and contributing to cultural, environmental and historical sociology, science and technology studies, and American studies.

Courses Taught 

SOCY 101: Introductory Sociology

SOCY 271: Introduction to Social Research

Selected Publications

Goettlich, Walter, Matt Comi, William G. Staples, and Drew Davidson. 2023. “‘It’s a Lifeline for Me’ Public Library Computing Services and Digitally Marginalized Kansans.” Pp. 72–93 in Broadband in Kansas: The Challenges of Digital Access and Affordability, edited by D. Ginther and G. Halegoua. Lawrence, KS: Institute for Policy & Social Research, University of Kansas.

Comi, Matt, Sarah Smith, Walter Goettlich, Perry Alexander, Drew Davidson, and William G. Staples. 2024. “Digital Home-Lessness: Exploring the Links Between Public Internet Access, Technological Capital, and Social Inequality.” Current Sociology 72(1):65–82. doi:10.1177/00113921221111819.