Conferences/Presentations
Presentation, “The Fate of the Simulacrum in the Blade Runner Universe.” Apr 2026. Pop Culture Association Annual Conference.
This paper examines the Blade Runner universe through Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra and the hyperreal, arguing that replicants embody the collapse of distinctions between the real and the imaginary. Replicants, bioengineered beings with implanted memories, raise the central question: what makes a human human—or, conversely, a replicant replicant? By situating replicants within a world already constructed as simulacrum—Los Angeles as a neon cave of shadows, Las Vegas as the “desert of the real,” and food as a hollow projection of sustenance—the films illustrate a universe where reality is inaccessible and only simulations remain.
Presentation, “The Semiotics of Disinformation on the Joe Rogan Experience.” May 2025. CWU Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression
Jordan Cagle 