SHELI AYERS is a doctoral candidate in literature at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "Virile Magic: Bataille / Baudelaire / Ballard" is part of ongoing resaerch on the modernist avantgarde and post-avantgarde. The subject of her dissertation is the phantasmatic "redemption" of the postmodern commodity-body in post-avantgardist texts by Kathy Acker, J.G. Ballard and David Lynch.

BENJAMIN BRATTON is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He will be at University of Paris III (Paris Center for Critical Studies) for the academic year 1995-96, as part of an ongoing investigation into the role that mythological imaginations of media technologies played in the formation of social and cultural spaces in France from the late 1950's to the mid-1980's. Other current research interests include the social and cultural histories of Christian television in the United States, and the discourse of Millenialism in 20th century Evangelical Christianity. He is a founding editor of _SPEED_.

LAURA GRINDSTAFF is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she also teaches in film studies and women's studies. She has just completed a 9-month stint working on a daytime television talkshow in Los Angeles, which will form the basis of her dissertation research. Her previous work theorizes the representation of gender/race/class in popular media, and includes publications on the abortion debate, the Thomas/Hill hearings, and John Wayne Bobbitt. Laura also holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario (Canada) with a specialization in documentary video.

AKIRA MIZUTA LIPPIT is an assitant professor of film studies and critical theory in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His work has appeared in _Afterimage_, _Assemblage_, _Camerawork_, _Criticism_, and _MLN_. He is currently working on the aesthetics of skin in postwar Japanese cinema.

GALEN MEURER is a doctoral candidate in French at Emory University (where he is also a LAN supervisor), and an undergraduate in Computer Science at Georgia State University. His research involves the examination of "virtual environments" and the application of fiction theory and epistemology to environments for instruction, collaboration, and research, especially those concerned with information presentation.

ROBERT NIDEFFER received a BA in cultural anthropology, an MA and Ph.D. in sociology, and an MFA in computer arts from the University of California at Santa Barbara. His dissertation: _Bodies, No-bodies, and Anti-bodies at War: Operation Desert Storm and the Politics of the 'Real'_ was authored as an interactive CD-ROM. He is a founding editor of _SPEED_.

JULIE PALSMEIER is currently working on her disseration, "Women filmmakers respond to May '68," in the French Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is a science fiction addict, and lead vocalist for Hans Christian Rodeo.

ADAM ZARETSKY studies parasitology and glossolalia at the University of Pataphysics in Salzburg, Austria. Other intrepid rants include "Latex Fetishware and the Binomial: Math Parasites in the World of Rubber Fashion," as well as the soon to be released ode to Galen "Orifice Theory, A Compendium." In 1989 Zaretsky met with Mikhail Gorbachev at a cultural summit in Geneva, Switzerland, whereupon Gorbachev stated: "Glasnost *is* parasitology."