Kathi Inman Berens

Research

Books

How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books. Cambridge University Press, August 2026.  

Who is a Reader? A Cross-National Approach to Reader Behaviour and Identity. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2027. 

Artificial Intelligence 

Co-author, AI and the Humanities: A Framework for Language and Literary Scholarship [Modern Language Association 2026]

Oregon AI Accelerator inaugural cohort, Spring 2026. Akaya. 

Media Studies 

Gen Z media consumption and identity; Gen Z and public libraries; contemporary reading; contemporary book industry; AI and book publishing; self-publishing; literary festivals

19th-century British literature 

Jane Austen; Charles Dickens; novels and bestseller culture; how and why to read long novels

Pedagogy 

Humanities and career readiness; creative industries training; teaching with/without AI; how to get the most out of live, in-person classrooms

Digital Culture

Video games; Instagram Poetry (“Instapoetry”); electronic literature

Biography

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens trained in British 18th and 19th century novels at the end of the 20th century. A Fulbright Scholar, she has published peer-reviewed scholarship about contemporary book publishing, digital literature, and digital humanities. She co-founded an AI startup. She writes for the popular press, is interviewed on podcasts, and leads webinars. She loves to collaborate, and is passionately committed to teaching. Favorite activity: listening to student reactions as we read long books. Favorite life hack: rowing on the Willamette.

Google Scholar.

On the PSU faculty since 2015.

Academic Awards

• Hayles Prize in Criticism, Electronic Literature Organization, shortlist 2020
• U.S. Fulbright Scholar of Digital Culture, Norway, 2014-15
• Annenberg Innovation Lab Research Council, University of Southern California, 2012-14
• Digital Humanities Award nominee: Best DH Project for a Public Audience, 2012
• Mobile Technology Research Initiative, Washington State University Vancouver, Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2011

Teaching Awards

• John Eliot Allen Teaching Award (twice) – Portland State University
• Certification: Expert in Career Readiness for Humanists – Modern Language Association
• Center for Excellence in Teaching, University of Southern California, Distinguished Fellow, 2006-2009

Grants

• $150,000 National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities Connections Award (2023-2026)
• $10,000 Modern Language Association Pathways Step Grant, funded by Mellon Foundation (2024)
• $15,000 PSU Faculty Development Grant (2024; 2018)
• $40,000 Panorama Project Immersive Media Study, 2020. Funders: Overdrive, American Library Association, Book Industry Study Group, Independent Book Publishers Association
• $10,000 Co-Presence in Virtual Classroom Software, 2013. Funder: IBM J-Start Emerging Technologies

Media

Television

• NBC Gen Z and millennials visit libraries at higher rates than older generations
• Nationally syndicated The surprising ways Gen Z and Millennials are using Public Libraries
• KOIN AM Extra (Portland-metro) Gen Z Prefers Physical Books

Podcasts

• Gen Z Loves Libraries Copyright Clearance Center’s Velocity of Content podcast 21 January 2024
• Data Direction for Publishers Copyright Clearance Center’s Velocity of Content podcast 26 September 2021
• On Book Discovery: Immersive Media and Books 2020 BookSmarts podcast 28 April 2021

Recent Publications

• "Gen Z and Millennials: Contrasts in Reading Behavior and Readerly Identity," The New Americanist (3.1) July 2024
• “E-Lit’s #1 Hit: Is Instagram Poetry E-Literature” (with a new preface). Reading #Instapoetry: A Poetics of Instagram. Bloomsbury Academic. June 2024.
• “Gen Z and Millennials: Contrasts in Reading Behavior and Reading Identity.” The New Americanist 3.1 (July 2024). Co-authored with Rachel Noorda.
• “Gen Zers and millennials are still big fans of books—even if they don’t call themselves ‘readers.’” The Conversation. 30 April 2024. Co-authored with Rachel Noorda
• PDX Scholar Repository
• Gen Z and millennials have an unlikely love affair with their local libraries The Conversation 12 January 2024
• Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use American Library Association report 1 November 2023
• Digital Humanities in General Education: Building Bridges Among Student Expertise at an Access University What We Teach When We Teach DH: Digital Humanities in the Classroom (University of Minnesota Press, December 2023) 
• The Digital Public Library Ecosystem American Library Association report 6 December 2023
• Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4 (2022) Electronic Literature Organization
• U.S. Book Show: Library Experience for Gen Z and Millennials. How Can Libraries Better Reach Them? (2022) Publishers Weekly
• Oregon’s rural libraries have persevered amid geographic, funding and other challenges (2022) The Oregonian
• Can Amazon's Kindle Vella Break Through With Younger Readers? (2022) Publishers Weekly 
• Immersive Media and Books 2020, first-of-its-kind industry report to examine book consumption alongside TV/movies and videogames. With co-author Dr. Rachel Noorda, have appeared in more than a dozen podcasts and webinars discussing the report's findings. Open access.
• "Is Digital Humanities Adjuncting Infrastructurally Significant?" (University of Minnesota Press, Debates in Digital Humanities series, 2022)
• "Keep Portland Weird?" Carnivalesque Elements in the Rebranding of the Portland Book Festival (Memoirs Du Livres/Studies in Book Culture 2020)
• "Ooligan Press: Building and Sustaining a Feminist Digital Humanities Lab at a R-2" (Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2020)
• "Decolonizing Electronic Literature: On Weeding the E-lit Garden" (Electronic Book Review, 2020)