About Leah Ransom

Confident woman with long dark hair outdoors in soft natural light.

I'm interested in what feels real and why. My research asks how digital environments produce the experience of presence, how selves are constructed and reconstructed through data, and what it means for a system — biological or artificial — to have something like subjectivity. These questions pull me across disciplinary lines, from rhetoric into philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and science and technology studies.

Neon-lit futuristic tunnel with glowing pink and blue lights.

Research

My dissertation developed the Rhetorical Gameworld Model, a framework for analyzing how digital simulations construct subjectivity and world. That project established the theoretical foundation I'm now extending to questions about the informational self. I have a piece under review at Philosophy & Rhetoric that argues that our digital archive forms an avatar out of sync with our informational/narrative selves.

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Teaching

Currently teaching at CalPoly, San Luis Obispo

My courses are designed to encourage students to critically examine how communication operates across both analog and digital contexts. I strive to create intellectually curious spaces where students feel empowered to interrogate the technologies and narratives shaping contemporary life.