Their story begins on ground level, with footsteps. They are myriad, but do not compose a series. They cannot be counted because each unit has a qualitative character: a style of tactile apprehension and kinesthetic appropriation. Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities. Their intertwined paths give their shape to spaces. They weave places together."

- Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

Allison Schifani is a PhD student in the Comparative Literature program at UCSB. Her research focuses in large part on sociality mediated by technology in urban space and the slippery, dynamics of biotechnology as both concept and industry. Her broader fields of inquiry include 20th Century literature of the Americas, particularly works coming out of Los Angeles and Buenos Aires. Flash mobs, Twitter, TXTmob and Geocaching are also among the recent practices and tools at which she has directed her critical gaze (and with which she has sometimes attempted her own small social experiments).

Allison is a member of the graduate student board of the Consortium for Literature Theory and Culture. She is also currently serving as lead teaching assistant for the Comparative Literature program.