Short bio available here.
Jermaine Anthony Richards is a communication historian, philosopher, and theorist; award-winning video game producer; multimedia relational artist, critic, and curator; and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Positioned squarely at the intersection of art, science, and technology, Jermaine Anthony’s work focuses on video games as strategic tools for managing existential risks, crises, and disasters. He joins communication theory; Black studies; contemporary art and entertainment; game studies; and the history and philosophy of science, technology, and medicine.
A PhD candidate at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (USC), Richards works with Robeson Taj Frazier *, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson (Duke - Literature and Critical Theory), and Cristina Mejia Visperas. He is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Science and Technology Studies through the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life, specializing in symbolic systems’ mathematical, computational, and civilizational associations.
Jermaine Anthony earned his BS in Communications Technology and Studio Art at York College, CUNY. There, he studied digital systems, principles, and applications as applied video game engineering. Viewing games as artistic experiences, he joined his technical studies with studio art, focusing on 20th-century Afro-diasporic art. He was mentored by the late Jamaican-born artist, curator, and art historian Margaret Rose Vendryes. This foundation shaped Jermaine Anthony’s integrative thinking about interactive media as symbolic systems and communicative instruments. He holds graduate degrees from USC and the London School of Economics. Richards gained further training in critical, philosophical, methodological, and global politico-economic perspectives about symbolic communicability.
Richards is an award-winning producer, curator, and relational artist specializing in video art, game art, and extended reality experiences. As a producer, Jermaine Anthony led the production of Momo Pixel’s Hair Nah, a viral mobile-web and arcade cabinet that critiques racialized bodily invasion. Qualified as an artwork, Hair Nah has been exhibited in London at the Tate Modern and V&A museums, and in the USA at the Smithsonian Museum, amongst others. The game has also appeared in Vogue and The New York Times. It is regularly taught at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and Oxbridge.
Jermaine Anthony’s academic and artistic work have been supported by the Advertising Club of New York (AdClub) Innovation, Industry, and Media Scholarship, the AdClub Presidential Fellowship, the LSE/USC Global Media and Global Communication Research Associate’s scholarship, the University of Southern California’s Provost’s DIA Fellowship, the American Association for Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation, the ADCOLOR® Conference, New America’s Digital Impact and Governance Initiative, the Responsible Asset Allocator, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, and The OpEd Project’s Public Voices Fellowship, amongst others.
Richards is working on his dissertation, which focuses on racial justice games’ capacity to carry out redress. When not doing that, he is developing a cross-sectoral advocacy innovation and production studio, playing his drums, electric, and bass guitars, recording music, writing a short story, or publishing public pieces on technology; media, art, and culture; and political conscientiousness.
Read more about Jermaine Anthony’s journey here
CV and references are available upon request.