Calum Lister Matheson

• Associate Professor of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

Calum Lister Matheson is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication and a graduate of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. Dr. Matheson's scholarly work is informed by traditions in rhetoric, media studies, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies. His first book, Desiring the Bomb: Communication, Psychoanalysis, and the Atomic Age examined the cultural impact of nuclear weapons in language, games, literature, and infrastructure with special attention to the ways that we have sought to discuss topics that defy the limits of language, such as human extinction, mysticism, and the end of the world.

Dr. Matheson's latest book Post-Weird: Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream is focused on how communities stick together in the wake of cultural and political fragmentation. He has written a series of articles and book chapters on conspiracy theorists, Sovereign Citizens, doomsday preppers, Internet subcultures, and the QAnon movement. His current book project investigates the structural similarities between vastly different discursive communities from Appalachian serpent-handling churches to Sandy Hook denialists and white supremacists.

Dr. Matheson teaches COMMRC 1117: Propaganda and Misinformation at the undergraduate level. This class explores propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation from a multidisciplinary perspective, including their historical development and current prevalence, using primary texts and academic commentaries on topics such as conspiracy theories, hoaxes, scams, motivated reasoning, and scientific distortions. At the graduate level, Dr. Matheson has taught classes focusing on psychoanalysis, rhetoric, and theories of language, such as COMMRC 2220: Readings in Critical Theory: Lacan. Prior to his appointment as department chair, Dr. Matheson was also the Director of the William Pitt Debating Union. He remains active in service opportunities at the department, school, and national level, including legal, political, and speech consulting.

• 2022–present Department Chair, University of Pittsburgh
• –present Faculty, Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center
• –present Associate Professor of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

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