Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Now entering its fourteenth year, “What Matters to Me and Why,” the annual series of informal discussions with respected members of our campus community, has enjoyed remarkable success.
This installment of What Matters to Me and Why features Annie McClanahan, Associate Professor of English and a scholar of contemporary U.S. culture and political economy. Her first book, Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and 21st Century Culture, explores how U.S. culture responded to the collapse of the financialized consumer credit economy in 2008. Her forthcoming second book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work, retheorizes capitalism and culture from the perspective of the service economy. She also works and teaches in the interdisciplinary field of critical university studies, with essays on student debt, faculty labor, and educational technology. She is the co-founder of the UC Materialist Institute for Research. She is also the Faculty Co-Director for UC Irvine LIFTED, the first in-prison BA-degree completion program in the UC system. LIFTED enables incarcerated individuals to apply to transfer into UC Irvine as juniors and earn a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine while serving their sentence. Annie coordinates LIFTED’s English minor and supports faculty in learning to teach in carceral settings with a focus on trauma-informed pedagogy.
Now entering its fourteenth year, “What Matters to Me and Why,” the annual series of informal discussions with respected members of our campus community, has enjoyed remarkable success.
This installment of What Matters to Me and Why features Annie McClanahan, Associate Professor of English and a scholar of contemporary U.S. culture and political economy. Her first book, Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and 21st Century Culture, explores how U.S. culture responded to the collapse of the financialized consumer credit economy in 2008. Her forthcoming second book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work, retheorizes capitalism and culture from the perspective of the service economy. She also works and teaches in the interdisciplinary field of critical university studies, with essays on student debt, faculty labor, and educational technology. She is the co-founder of the UC Materialist Institute for Research. She is also the Faculty Co-Director for UC Irvine LIFTED, the first in-prison BA-degree completion program in the UC system. LIFTED enables incarcerated individuals to apply to transfer into UC Irvine as juniors and earn a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine while serving their sentence. Annie coordinates LIFTED’s English minor and supports faculty in learning to teach in carceral settings with a focus on trauma-informed pedagogy.
