Patrick Keilty is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information and Cinema Studies Institute, at the University of Toronto. Professor Keilty’s research interests can be divided into two areas: the politics of digital infrastructures in the sex industries and the materiality of sexual media. He has published on embodiment and technology, data science, the history of information retrieval, cataloging, archives, design and experience, graphic design, temporality, and sexual taxonomies. His work spans visual culture, sexual politics, science and technology studies, media studies, information studies, political economy, critical theory, and theories of gender, sexuality, and race. His research projects have been generously supported by multiple grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) over the years. He is the editor or coeditor of Handbook of Adult Film and Media (Intellect 2025), Queer Data Studies (University of Washington Press 2023), and Feminist & Queer Information Studies Reader (Litwin 2013). He is currently writing a monograph about the politics of technology in the sex industries.
He was previously co-chair of the Adult Film History Group in the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) from 2020 – 2023 and co-lead editor for Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience from 2017 – 2019. In addition to his appointment in the Faculty of Information and Cinema Studies Institute, Professor Keilty is a faculty member at University College, affiliated with the Women and Gender Studies Institute, and member of the Technoscience Research Unit.
Professor Keilty teaches courses on technology studies, digital theory, feminist and queer studies, information infrastructures, and cinema studies. He holds a PhD in Information Studies, concentration in Women’s Studies (now Gender Studies), from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has lived in Toronto since 2012, and is originally from Alta Loma, California. Prior to academia, he worked in libraries and archives in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and London, UK.
