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DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20251013T170000
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SUMMARY:ESC HATCH | 2025 Fall Mixer
DESCRIPTION:The Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing invites all ESC researchers and an ESC-curious guests to our Fall mixer for the ESC Community at Bløm Meadworks 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.\, Monday\, October 13\, 2025. This includes food\, drink\, and cozy fall weather.  Please RSVP here as soon as possible. RSVP once for yourself and once again if you will bring a guest!  
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-2025-fall-mixer/
LOCATION:Bløm Meadworks\, 100 S. 4th Avenue\, Suite 110\, Ann Arbor 48104
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20251003T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20251003T170000
DTSTAMP:20251001T144106Z
CREATED:20251001T144106Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251001T144106Z
UID:3741-1759503600-1759510800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Search Engines: Search History Volume 2 Zine Launch
DESCRIPTION:Please register here if you plan to attend in person or via Zoom. Search History is a student-led zine publication from the University of Michigan community\, hosted by Search Engines: Art\, Tech\, Justice. Search Engines is funded by the U-M Arts Initiative and the DISCO Network\, housed in the Digital Studies Institute. In the last year\, Search Engines brought artists such as Astria Suparak\, Beth Coleman\, Morehshin Allahyari\, Paul Preciado\, and Molly Soda to the Ann Arbor campus for workshops\, performances\, and panel discussions. The Search History zine mediates on the implications of an increasingly digital world and asks questions like: How does art help us redefine what technology is? What is your vision of the future and how can art and technology make it a reality? And how do interdisciplinary practices in technology expand traditional knowledge production and storytelling? Search History Vol. 2 is titled and themed “Into the Rabbit Hole.” The Search History Zine Launch will include conversation\, food\, and reading from zine contributors. Join us on Friday\, October 3rd\, 3PM-5PM ET in or on Zoom to celebrate the launch of Search History Vol. 2! We want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the RSVP form\, please email Giselle Mills at gimills@umich.edu. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing\, along with Arts Initiative\, Institute for Research on Women and Gender\, and Science\, Technology\, & Public Policy.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/search-engines-search-history-volume-2-zine-launch/
LOCATION:1010 Weiser Hall
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250930T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250930T170000
DTSTAMP:20250922T173859Z
CREATED:20250918T195904Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250922T173859Z
UID:3713-1759244400-1759251600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Neda Atanasoski & Nassim Parvin: Forging Feminist Futures from 'Creepy' Technologies
DESCRIPTION:Talk Abstract In this talk\, Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin will discuss their recent book and edited volume\, Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen\, published by Duke University Press in May 2025. New and emerging technologies\, especially ones that infiltrate intimate spaces\, relations\, homes\, and bodies\, are often referred to as creepy in media and political discourses. The book introduces a feminist theory of creep\, substantiating it through critical engagement with smart homes\, smart dust\, smart desires\, and smart forests\, toward dreams of feminist futures. Contributing authors further illuminate what is otherwise obscured\, assumed\, or dismissed in characterizations of technology as creepy or creeping. Considering diverse technologies\, such as border surveillance and China’s credit system\, as well as sexcams and home assistants\, the volume’s essays and artworks demonstrate that the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence and digital and robotic technologies cannot be assessed through binaries of seeing/being seen\, privacy/surveillance\, or harmful/useful. Neda Atanasoski is Professor and Chair of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women\, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland\, College Park and Associate Director of Education for the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM). Atanasoski’s interdisciplinary research has focused on feminism and AI\, feminist and critical race approaches to science and technology studies\, AI and the future of work\, militarism\, and human rights and humanitarianism. She is the author of Humanitarian Violence: The U.S. Deployment of Diversity (2013)\, co-author of Surrogate Humanity: Race\, Robots\, and the Politics of Technological Futures (2019)\, and co-editor of Postsocialist Politics and the Ends of Revolution (2022) and Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen (2025). Nassim Parvin is a Professor at the University of Washington (UW) Information School where she also serves as the Associate Dean for Inclusion\, Diversity\, Equity\, Access & Sovereignty (IDEAS). Dr. Parvin’s interdisciplinary research integrates theoretically-driven humanistic scholarship and design-based inquiry. Her papers have appeared in design\, HCI\, and STS venues. Her designs have been deployed at nonprofit organizations and exhibited in venues such as the Smithsonian Museum. She is the co-author and co-editor of the book Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen (2025). She is an award-winning educator and served as one of the lead coeditors of Catalyst: Feminism\, Theory\, Technoscience from 2018-2023. We strive to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space.  A free copy of the authors’ new book\, Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen\, will be offered to the first 25 in-person attendees on site. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://myumi.ch/QwGnk Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/794by CART (live captioning) services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance\, and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible. Digital Studies Institue is hosting the event. The Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing is co-sponsoring the event with DISCO Network.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/neda-atanasoski-nassim-parvin-forging-feminist-futures-from-creepy-technologies/
LOCATION:1010 Weiser Hall
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250424T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250424T160000
DTSTAMP:20250404T181108Z
CREATED:20250326T015756Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250404T181108Z
UID:3642-1745505000-1745510400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Cara Wallis Book Launch | Social Media and Ordinary Life: Affect\, Ethics\, and Aspiration in Contemporary China
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Cara Wallis will launch her new book\, Social Media and Ordinary Life: Affect\, Ethics\, and Aspiration in Contemporary China on April 24\, 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm at NQ Space 2435. She will be in conversation with Dr. Silvia Lindtner and Dr. Yi-Li Wu. \nPlease mark the date and join us! Light refreshments and book giveaway will be on site! \n 
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/cara-wallis-book-launch-social-media-and-ordinary-life/
LOCATION:North Quad Space 2435
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250414T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250414T150000
DTSTAMP:20250403T201111Z
CREATED:20250403T201111Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250403T201111Z
UID:3649-1744639200-1744642800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:DISCO Event | Building the Indigenous Internet
DESCRIPTION:Abstract This panel brings together key voices in infrastructure as broadly imagined\, data sovereignty and decolonial perspectives to critically explore the history\, present\, and future of the indigenous Internet. The conversation will showcase how Indigenous knowledge has and will continue to shape data worlds by bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives on emerging technologies—ranging from computer science\, artificial intelligence\, social media\, online activism\, the work of infrastructure and circuit building\, and beyond. By centering Indigenous voices\, the discussion aims to create transformative visions for a sustainable\, equitable\, and inclusive digital future while inviting speculative thinking about post-settler digital worlds. Free copies of Indigenous Currencies: Leaving Some for the Rest in the Digital Age by Ashley Cordes will be provided to the first 50 attendees. All are welcome and we strongly encourage undergraduate and graduate students to attend. Advance registration is recommended: Register to attend in person: https://myumi.ch/N6wx9 Register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/egDpX   Meet the PanelistsAshley Cordes (Coquille/KōKwel) is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Media in ENVS and Data Science at the University of Oregon and a recent American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of Indigenous science and technology studies\, digital media\, and environmental/place-based studies. She is interested in how Indigenous culture and technology producers leverage discursive\, technological\, and media forms of “digital Indigeneity” toward Tribal economic independence\, representational and data sovereignty\, Indigenous cultural revitalization\, and the resurgence of Indigenous knowledge systems. Her research in AI has been published in the Indigenous Protocols Artificial Intelligence position paper and her other works on representation\, digital humanities\, and Indigenous methods have been published in journals such as Cultural Studies >Critical Methodologies\, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication\, and Feminist Media Studies. She is the author of the book\, Indigenous Currencies: Leaving Some for the Rest in the Digital Age in production with MIT Press. Majerle Lister is a Diné student whose research interest ranges from Indigenous geography\, Native American Studies\, and Critical Agrarian Studies. Focusing on land regimes in the Navajo Nation\, he is interested in how land relations are shaped by development projects and historical Diné land relations and practices. His research explores the development discourses and practices within the Former Bennett Freeze Area in Western Navajo Nation. Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Culture\, and the founding Director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor. Since 1994\, Nakamura has written books and articles on digital bodies\, race\, and gender in online environments\, on toxicity in video game culture\, and the many reasons that Internet research needs ethnic and gender studies. These books include\, Race After the Internet (co-edited with Peter Chow-White\, Routledge\, 2011); Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (Minnesota\, 2007); Cybertypes: Race\, Ethnicity\, and Identity on the Internet (Routledge\, 2002); and Race in Cyberspace (co-edited with Beth Kolko and Gil Rodman\, Routledge\, 2000). In November 2019\, Nakamura gave a TED NYC talk about her research called “The Internet is a Trash Fire. Here’s How to Fix It.”   This event is co-sponsored by Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing\, Computer Science and Engineering\, Department of American Culture\, Department of Comparative Literature\, Department of Film\, Television\, and Media\nDepartment of History\, Native American Studies\, Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences\, Science\, Technology & Society Program\, Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Program\, and School of Information.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/disco-event-building-the-indigenous-internet/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250411T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250411T130000
DTSTAMP:20250409T012301Z
CREATED:20250408T221631Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250409T012301Z
UID:3662-1744369200-1744376400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Political Economy & Algorithms RIW | David Widder: Basic Research\, Lethal Effects: Military AI Research Funding as Enlistment
DESCRIPTION:Abstract In the context of unprecedented U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) budgets\, this talk examines the recent history of DoD funding for academic research in algorithmically based warfighting. I draw from a corpus of DoD grant solicitations from 2007 to 2023\, focusing on those addressed to researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Considering the implications of DoD funding for academic research\, the talk proceeds through three analytic sections. In the first\, I offer a critical examination of the distinction between basic and applied research\, showing how funding calls framed as basic research nonetheless enlist researchers in a war fighting agenda. In the second\, I offer a diachronic analysis of the corpus\, showing how a ‘one small problem’ caveat\, in which affirmation of progress in military technologies is qualified by acknowledgement of outstanding problems\, becomes justification for additional investments in research. I close with an analysis of DoD aspirations based on a subset of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant solicitations for the use of AI in battlefield applications. Taken together\, I argue that grant solicitations work as a vehicle for the mutual enlistment of DoD funding agencies and the academic AI research community in setting research agendas. The trope of basic research in this context offers shelter from significant moral questions that military applications of one’s research would raise\, by obscuring the connections that implicate researchers in U.S. militarism. Speaker Bio David Gray Widder (he/him) studies how people creating “Artificial Intelligence” systems think about the downstream harms their systems make possible\, and the wider cultural\, political\, and economic logics which shape these thoughts. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech\, and earned his PhD from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Please register here for the calendar invite! The talk will be live-streamed via Zoom. Political Economy and Algorithms is a Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop. Read more about it here. This event is co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/political-economy-algorithms-riw-david-widder-basic-research-lethal-effects-military-ai-research-funding-as-enlistment/
LOCATION:NQ 2255
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250408T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250408T173000
DTSTAMP:20250407T161334Z
CREATED:20250128T162543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250407T161334Z
UID:3511-1744128000-1744133400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Canceled: Maria Repnikova | Competing for "Soft Power": China’s Uneven Image-Making in Africa
DESCRIPTION:This talk is canceled and will be rescheduled in the academic year of 2025-2026. Please stay tuned for more information! \nAbstract \nThrough the critical case study of Ethiopia\, this book project identifies three core mechanisms of China’s image-making in Africa: tangible enticement through material and experiential offerings\, ideational promotion of values and governance practices\, and censorial influence through guarding the production and diffusion of China narratives. The in-depth fieldwork in China and Ethiopia further demonstrates the fractures in China’s image-making as Chinese messengers can improvise official agendas and Ethiopian recipients strategically appropriate and negotiate Chinese power. Counterintuitively China’s engagement with Africa has also reinforced a shared longing for the West as a professional destination and standard setter. Challenging the popular claims about China as replacing the West in the Global South\, therefore\, this study reveals the ambitions\, but also the inconsistencies in China’s influence-wielding\, as well as the looming shadow of the West in mediating the Sino-African encounter. \nBio: \nDr. Maria Repnikova is an Associate Professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University. This year she is also a non-residential Wilson China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. She received her doctorate (DPhil) in Politics at the University of Oxford\, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. \nThis event is co-sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/maria-repnikova-competing-for-soft-power-chinas-uneven-image-making-in-africa/
LOCATION:North Quad Space 2435
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250404T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250405T170000
DTSTAMP:20250312T180522Z
CREATED:20250312T175334Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T180522Z
UID:3602-1743757200-1743872400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Social Media & Society in India Symposium 2025 (SMSI 2025)
DESCRIPTION:Welcome to the Social Media & Society in India Symposium (SMSI 2025)  taking place on April 4-5\, 2025\, at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor. Even if you do not do work in India\, take a look at the exciting list of topics\, some of which speak to how social media is impacting society everywhere around the world\, and it’s free to view online! Please register to join us in person or online. The conference is running in its 5th iteration and has\, in the past\, featured a unique blend of speakers who are typically practitioners and professionals. This year’s symposium brings together leading journalists\, digital activists\, researchers\, and media professionals to explore the evolving role of social media in democracy\, activism\, business\, and representation in India. \nPanels & Talks – The symposium will comprise of 5 sessions over two days\, featuring lightning talks and moderated discussions. Day 1 (April 4) of the symposium will feature panels related to the theme of Citizenship and Democracy\, and Day 2 (April 5) will feature panels centered around the Social and Economic Aspects of social media platforms. \nStudent Research Session – Day 2 will also feature a session with poster presentations by student researchers on various aspects of Social Media and Society \n1:1 Office Hours and Interactions  – A chance to set up 10-minute zoom appointments with your favorite speakers at the conference \nAI & Social Media Workshop – Day 2 will feature a workshop on “Integrating state-of-the-art AI tools in Social Media work” led by Dr. Kiran Garimella \nPlease view the program schedule and speakers here. See more detailed information about our symposium here. This event is co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/social-media-society-in-india-symposium-2025-smsi-2025/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250402T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250402T170000
DTSTAMP:20250312T180346Z
CREATED:20250312T180346Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T180346Z
UID:3611-1743602400-1743613200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:What is Critical Now? Media Studies Between Crisis and Critique | Graduate Student Workshop & Panel Lecture
DESCRIPTION:Media today are our situation; they constitute the fabric of living. But a number of new crises–and subjects–have profoundly shaped the field of media studies\, including an environmental turn in media studies\, elemental media\, ubiquitous computing\, distributed sensing\, and pervasive algorithms and artificial intelligence. Accordingly\, this conference revists and updates Mark B.N. Hansen and WJT Mitchell’s landmark Critical Terms for Media Studies (2010) by accounting for how these new ways of thinking impact the subjective\, aesthetic\, political\, material and economic registers of life and living in the twenty-first century. In particular\, the conference will explore the many disciplinary and post-disciplinary transformations in the study of media since its publication (including the moment of “post-critique”). To that end\, the conference will bring together an interdisciplinary set of emerging scholars external to the University of Michigan with UM graduate students and faculty to reconsider the project of media critique today. The morning session (10:00 am-11:30 am\, Digital Studies Institute Lab Space) is reserved for a limited-capacity working session with the invited speakers for graduate students involved broadly in the critical study of media. RSVP here: https://myumi.ch/qZkRx The afternoon (2:00 pm- 5:00 pm\, Hatcher Graduate Library\, Hatcher Gallery\, Room 100) will consist of four 45-minute “Keyword Panel” sessions\, with a talk by each guest speaker followed by a dialogue with U-M faculty. The panel discussion is open to graduate students\, the Digital Studies Institute\, University of Michigan faculty and students\, and the general public to reflect on post-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary turns within the study of media technology and culture as well as new limits and possibilities for media critique. RSVP here: https://myumi.ch/qZkRx Speaker Bios: Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal is an Associate Professor of Digital Humanities\, Artificial Intelligence\, and Media Studies at the University of Basel\, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in English Literature\, with a designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies\, from University of California\, Davis. Ranjodh’s research\, which traces the aesthetic and political entanglements of our technological cultures\, lies at the intersections of science fiction studies\, critical media theory\, and histories of science and technology. Thomas Patrick Pringle is an Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University. Pringle focuses on historical approaches to film and media\, with an emphasis on how media shape how environments are conceived in a given place and time and how technologies interact with physical environments. ​​Anna Shechtman is an Assistant Professor of Literatures in English\, specializing in media studies and American literature. She is writing a two-volume history of the “media” and “data” concepts in the United States. The first examines the social formations and technologies of production that have allowed “media” to incorporate—and perhaps even supersede—the categories of “art\,” “literature\,” “communication\,” and “culture” in the second half of the 20th century. Hannah Zeavin is a scholar\, writer\, and editor whose work centers on the history of human sciences (psychoanalysis\, psychology\, and psychiatry)\, the history of technology and media\, feminist science and technology studies\, and media theory. Zeavin is an Assistant Professor of History (Science / North America) in the Department of History and The Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley. We want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the RSVP form\, please email Rebecca Uliasz at ruliasz@umich.edu. This event is co-sponsored by ESC\, along with Media Studies (Graduate Student) Interest Group\, Department of Comparative Literature\,  Department of English Language & Literature\,  Department of Film\, Television and Media\,  Department of Communication and Media\, Digital Studies Institute.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/what-is-critical-now-media-studies-between-crisis-and-critique-graduate-student-workshop-panel-lecture/
LOCATION:100 Hatcher Graduate Library
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250401T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250401T163000
DTSTAMP:20240904T215101Z
CREATED:20240904T215101Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240904T215101Z
UID:3313-1743519600-1743525000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Elisa Giardina Papa | Data Heresy: A Queer Incomputable Tale
DESCRIPTION:Event Abstract: In this talk\, Elisa Giardina Papa will outline the theoretical and archival research which informs two of her experimental video installations\, Cleaning Emotional Data and “U Scantu”: A Disorderly Tale. Presenting images she collected while working as a “data cleaner” for various AI systems\, she will address the ways in which machines are disciplined and trained to see. Tracing\, bounding-boxing\, and labeling are key operations used to teach machines to separate Data from data\, signal from noise\, and orderly things from disorderly ones. They are also\, Giardina Papa argues\, the onto-epistemological operations of modern imperial and colonial conquest. To address AI’s normative impulse to divide and classify\, create hierarchies and produce difference\, we need to understand machine vision not only as a “new” tool of extractive capitalism but also\, more importantly\, as one of the many tools of a recursive hegemonic ordering of the world. Ultimately\, this talk will be an invitation to reflect on modes of seeing otherwise which remain radically unruly\, irreducible\, and incomputable.   Speaker Bio: Elisa Giardina Papa is an artist and scholar\, Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Her research-based art practice seeks forms of knowledge and desire that have been lost or forgotten\, disqualified\, and rendered nonsensical by hegemonic demands for order and legibility. Working across Artificial intelligence-based projects\, large-scale video installations\, experimental films\, and writing\, she draws attention to those aspects of our lives that remain radically incomputable. Her work has been exhibited at the 59th Biennale di Venezia (The Milk of Dreams)\, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA’s Modern Mondays)\, the Whitney Museum (Sunrise/Sunset Commission)\, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin\, ICA and Frieze London\, BFI London Film Festival\, Vienna Secession\, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt\, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt (HKW) Berlin\, 6th Buenos Aires Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento\, Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018\, the Center for Contemporary Art Tashkent\, Uzbekistan\, M+ Hong Kong\, among others. Her latest art book\, Leaking Subjects and Bounding Boxes: On Training AI (Sorry Press\, 2022)\, documents the methods currently used to teach Artificial intelligence to capture\, classify\, and order the world and presents a collection of images that exceed computation. Forthcoming essays include the foreword for Informatics of Domination (Duke University Press\, 2024). Elisa Giardina Papa co-founded the artist collective Radha May. Alongside Indian artist Nupur Mathur and Ugandan artist Bathsheba Okwenje\, they collaborate on performances and art installations that uncover hidden histories and marginalized sites\, examining their intersections with gender\, sexuality\, and colonialism. Elisa Giardina Papa holds a Ph.D. in Film and Media from the University of California\, Berkeley\, and has previously held positions at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Accessibility Statement: We want to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3ArOQz8 Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus: https://myumi.ch/pkrey   CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/elisa-giardina-papa-data-heresy-a-queer-incomputable-tale/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250331T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250331T183000
DTSTAMP:20250327T015655Z
CREATED:20250327T015539Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T015655Z
UID:3644-1743436800-1743445800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:DISCO | TikTok\, DeepSeek and the Fear of Chinese Tech in Nationalist Times
DESCRIPTION:Abstract For the first time\, two of the most popular apps in the world – TikTok and the A.I. chatbot DeepSeek – are Chinese. American legislative efforts to restrict or outright ban Chinese apps and other technologies on the grounds of national security have dominated recent headlines. During a time of political turmoil\, increasing hostility towards trade with other nations\, and the rush to maintain U.S. dominance over the tech industry\, anti-Chinese sentiment has (re)surfaced in ways that echo earlier American anxieties about Asian labor competition and racial difference. This panel will bring together Asian American media scholars and culture creators to analyze what this climate means for our shifting technological landscape\, Asian American communities\, and race relations in the U.S. Free boba will be provided to the first 100 in-person attendees. All are welcome and we strongly encourage undergraduate and graduate students to attend. Advance registration is recommended: Register to attend in person: https://myumi.ch/AZjJG Register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/RmG6y Meet the Panelists Tara Fickle is an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. Her first book\, The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities\, (NYU Press\, 2019\, winner of Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award)\, explores how games have been used to establish and combat Asian and Asian American racial stereotypes. Fickle’s current research projects include the racialized dimensions of esports\, virtual currency harvesting in video games\, and a digital archive of the canonical Asian American anthology\, Aiiieeeee! She teaches courses on Asian American culture\, gaming\, comics\, and the digital humanities. Ian Shin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. He is a historian of the 19th- and 20th-century United States and is interested in how “culture\,” broadly defined\, reflects but also shapes the politics of its time. His research and teaching concentrate on U.S.-China relations\, U.S. empire\, immigration\, and the Asian American experience. His book manuscript—entitled Imperial Stewards: Chinese Art and the Cultural Origins of America’s Pacific Century—examines Chinese art collecting in the U.S. in the early 20th century as a contested process of knowledge production that bolstered ideas of American exceptionalism\, even while it relied on transpacific circuits of labor and expertise. Jeff Yang has been observing\, exploring\, and writing about the Asian American community for over thirty years. He launched one of the first Asian American national magazines\, A. Magazine\, in the late nineties and early 2000s\, and now writes frequently for CNN\, New York Times\, and elsewhere. He has authored three books—Jackie Chan’s New York Times bestselling memoir I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action; Once Upon a Time in China\, a history of the cinemas of Hong Kong\, Taiwan\, and the Mainland; and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture\, and recently coauthored the New York Times bestselling RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now. Meet the Moderator Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Culture\, and the founding Director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor. Since 1994\, Nakamura has written books and articles on digital bodies\, race\, and gender in online environments\, on toxicity in video game culture\, and the many reasons that Internet research needs ethnic and gender studies. These books include\, Race After the Internet (co-edited with Peter Chow-White\, Routledge\, 2011); Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (Minnesota\, 2007); Cybertypes: Race\, Ethnicity\, and Identity on the Internet (Routledge\, 2002); and Race in Cyberspace (co-edited with Beth Kolko and Gil Rodman\, Routledge\, 2000). In November 2019\, Nakamura gave a TED NYC talk about her research called “The Internet is a Trash Fire. Here’s How to Fix It.” This event is co-sponsored by Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program\, Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing\, Department of American Culture\, Department of Comparative Literature\, Department of Film\, Television\, and Media\, Department of History\, Department of Political Science\, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies\, Program in International and Comparative Studies\, School of Information\, Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Program\, and Science\, Technology\, and Society Program.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/disco-tiktok-deepseek-and-the-fear-of-chinese-tech-in-nationalist-times/
LOCATION:Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space\, 500 Church St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250327T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250327T190000
DTSTAMP:20250312T174739Z
CREATED:20250303T173452Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T174739Z
UID:3568-1743094800-1743102000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC EMPIRE
DESCRIPTION:The Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing invites all ESC researchers and an ESC-curious guest to our Winter mixer for the ESC Community at The Circ at 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.\, Thursday\, March 27\, 2025. This includes a fireplace\, patio\, food\, and drink. This event will include interactive activities on the theme ESC Empire. Please RSVP here by Sunday\, March 23. RSVP once for yourself and once again if you will bring a guest. Directions For Fully Accessible Entry: On the ground floor\, there is a door right by the staircase. Ring the doorbell and someone from The Circ staff will come down to open it. A staff member will walk you to the Lounge. Feel Free to download our high-resolution flyer here.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/empire/
LOCATION:The Circ Bar\, 2nd Floor Private Lounge\, 210 S 1st St\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250317T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250317T163000
DTSTAMP:20250310T025024Z
CREATED:20250128T164110Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250310T025024Z
UID:3515-1742223600-1742229000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Taomo Zhou | From Military-Industrial Complex to Global Supply Chain: A History of the Electronics Industry in Shenzhen\, China
DESCRIPTION:Abstract In the context of contemporary geopolitical dynamics\, discussions about “delinking” and “derisking” have become increasingly prominent\, particularly in relation to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. This talk examines the reverse of the current trend: the emergence of the global supply chain that transformed China into the “factory of the world” and elevated Shenzhen—one of China’s first Special Economic Zones—into the “Silicon Valley of hardware” and the headquarters of U.S.-blacklisted Information and Communication Technology (ICT) giants Huawei and ZTE. Focusing on the period between the 1980s and 2000s\, I highlight three key processes that fuelled Shenzhen’s rapid rise in the electronics industry: Large-scale relocation of military-industry factories from China’s interior to Shenzhen provided the city with essential human capital; Export-oriented manufacturing facilitated the inflow of advanced technologies and expertise from Hong Kong\, Taiwan\, Japan and the US\, driving technological upgrades; Shenzhen’s status as an institutional experiment with a market economy in socialist China encouraged the innovative repurposing of Cold War-era military technologies\, such as adapting military radar for real-time price transmission at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. These intertwined processes—migration\, circulation\, and conversion—positioned Shenzhen as a pivotal node for global technological diffusion and solidified its role as a critical technological contact zone connecting China with the rest of the world. Bio: Taomo Zhou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Studies and Dean’s Chair in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences\, National University of Singapore. Her first book\, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China\, Indonesia and the Cold War (Cornell University Press\, 2019)\, won a Foreign Affairs “Best Books of 2020” award and an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Harry J. Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Taomo is currently working on her second book project entitled “Made in Shenzhen: A Global History of China’s First Special Economic Zone\,” which is under advance contract with Stanford University Press. More details about Dr. Taomo Zhou can be found here. Please register here if you plan to attend this event online. This event is co-sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/taomo-zhou-from-military-industrial-complex-to-global-supply-chain-a-history-of-the-electronics-industry-in-shenzhen-china/
LOCATION:Ehrlicher Room\, NQ3100
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250313T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250314T180000
DTSTAMP:20250310T124012Z
CREATED:20250206T162215Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250310T124012Z
UID:3530-1741887000-1741975200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:STS 25th Anniversary Conference
DESCRIPTION:On March 13-14\, 2025\, STS is hosting a 25th Anniversary Conference featuring presentations from graduate student alumni and former and current UM STS faculty members. STS program envisions this as an academic family reunion—a chance to share a meal with old friends\, meet new colleagues\, reflect on past accomplishments\, and discover what’s new in the ever-expanding world of U-M STS. \nHere is a brief agenda of the event. Please RSVP here!\n\n\n\nThursday\, March 13\, Rackham Assembly Hall \n5:30 pm: Keynote\, Gabrielle Hecht\, Stanford University: “Inside-Out Earth” \nFollowed by a catered dinner for guests who RSVP \nFriday\, March 14\, 1014 Tisch\, 8:15-6 pm \n8:15-8:35 am: Light Breakfast \n8:35-8:45 am: Welcome \n8:45-10:30 am: Orders of Extraction \n10:45-12:00 pm: Centering the Marginalized in Medical STS \n12:00-1:15 pm: Lunch \n1:15-2:30 pm: Engaged STS and Environmental Crisis \n2:45-4:30 pm: The Ambivalent Politics of Ambiguous Data \n4:45-6:00: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of U-M STS: Concluding Roundtable \n\nThis event is made possible by the generous support of the School of Information\, the English Language and Literature Department\, the History Department\, the Communications Department\, the Digital Studies Institute\, the Anthropology Department\, the Sociology Department\, the Eisenberg Institute\, the Anthro-History Department\, the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing\, the Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy program\, the African Studies Center\, the LSA Research Office\, the LSA Humanities Institute\, and the RCI Block Grants for Arts and Humanities.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/sts-25th-anniversary-conference/
LOCATION:1014 Tisch Hall\, 435 S State St\, Ann Arbor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250312T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250312T163000
DTSTAMP:20250122T200156Z
CREATED:20250113T160626Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250122T200156Z
UID:3487-1741791600-1741797000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Oliver Haimson | Trans Technologies Book Launch Event
DESCRIPTION:A conversation with UMSI Assistant Professor of Information Oliver L. Haimson\, author of Trans Technologies (MIT Press)\, hosted by UMSI Professor Kishonna Gray\, on how technology creates new possibilities for transgender people\, and how trans experiences\, in turn\, create new possibilities for technology. Book signing and reception to follow. Free book copies for the first 50 in-person attendees. Please see details of the event here. RSVP for in-person attendance here. Register to attend online here. Book description:\nMainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when trans people take technology design into their own hands. Oliver L. Haimson\, whose research into gender transition and technology has defined this area of study\, draws on transgender studies and his own in-depth interviews with more than 100 creators of technology—including apps\, games\, health resources\, extended reality systems\, and supplies designed to address challenges trans people face—to explain what trans technology is and to explore its present possibilities and limitations\, as well as its future prospects. Haimson surveys the landscape of trans technologies to reveal the design processes that brought these technologies to life\, and to show how trans people often must rely on community\, technology\, and the combination of the two to meet their basic needs and challenges. His work not only identifies the role of trans technology in caring for individuals within the trans community but also shows how trans technology creation empowers some trans people to create their own tools for navigating the world. Articulating which trans needs and challenges are currently being addressed by technology and which still need to be addressed; describing how trans technology creators are accomplishing this work; examining how privilege\, race\, and access to resources impact which trans technologies are built and who may be left out; and highlighting new areas of innovation to be explored\, Trans Technologies opens the way to meaningful social change. Author bio:\nDr. Oliver Haimson is an assistant professor at University of Michigan School of Information and author of Trans Technologies (MIT Press\, 2025). He is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award. Haimson conducts social computing research focused on envisioning and designing trans technologies. ESC is co-sponsoring the event with the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI)\, Digital Studies Institute (DSI)\, Institute for Research on Women & Gender (IRWG)\, and Spectrum Center.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/oliver-haimson-trans-technologies-book-launch-event/
LOCATION:North Quad Space 2435
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250224T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250224T173000
DTSTAMP:20250221T183207Z
CREATED:20250221T182748Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250221T183207Z
UID:3539-1740412800-1740418200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC Faculty Talk | Nazanin Andalibi: Emotion AI in the Future of Work
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \nEmotion AI\, increasingly used in mundane (e.g.\, entertainment) to high-stakes (e.g.\, education\, healthcare\, workplace) contexts\, refers to technologies that claim to algorithmically recognize\, detect\, predict\, and infer emotions\, emotional states\, moods\, and even mental health status using a wide range of input data. While emotion AI is critiqued for associated scientific validity\, bias\, and surveillance concerns\, it continues to be patented\, developed\, and used without public debate\, resistance\, or regulation. \nIn this talk\, I highlight some of my research group’s work focusing on the workplace to discuss: 1) how emotion AI technologies are conceived of by their inventors and what values are embedded in their design\, and 2) the perspectives of the humans who produce the data that make emotion AI possible\, and whose experiences are shaped by these technologies: data subjects. I argue that emotion AI is not just technical\, it is sociotechnical\, political\, and enacts/shifts power. I show how emotion AI could harm the very conditions its advocates promise it will improve (e.g.\, worker wellbeing\, work conditions)\, rendering it a problematic choice for addressing structural challenges workers face in the workplace. I conclude that even with technical reforms (e.g.\, reducing biases\, improving accuracy) many emotion AI-inflicted harms (e.g.\, emotional labor\, privacy harms) would persist. \n  \nBio: \nNazanin Andalibi is an assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan and is an affiliate faculty member at the university’s Digital Studies Institute; Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing; and Center for Social Media Responsibility. As a social computing and human-computer interaction (HCI) scholar\, her research examines how marginality is experienced\, enacted\, facilitated\, or disrupted in and as mediated through sociotechnical systems such as artificial intelligence and social media. For example\, a central theme of her research examines the privacy\, ethical\, justice\, and policy implications of emotion AI technologies in high-stakes contexts including the workplace\, job interviews\, social media\, and health care.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-faculty-talk-nazanin-andalibi-emotion-ai-in-the-future-of-work/
LOCATION:1014 Tisch Hall\, 435 S State St\, Ann Arbor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250218T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250218T163000
DTSTAMP:20250113T162105Z
CREATED:20250113T161013Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250113T162105Z
UID:3490-1739890800-1739896200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions
DESCRIPTION:In this presentation\, Erin McElroy will discuss Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times\, just published with Duke University Press with Matt Bui. The book maps out processes of gentrification\, racial dispossession\, and economic predation that drove the development of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area and also looks at how that logic has become manifest in postsocialist Romania. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Romania and the United States\, McElroy exposes the mechanisms through which the appeal of Silicon Valley technocapitalism devours space and societies\, displaces residents\, and generates extreme income inequality in order to expand its reach. The book also explores how in Romania\, dreams of privatization have updated fascist pasts\, often in the name of anticommunism. At the same time\, McElroy accounts for the ways that activists and artists resist Silicon Valley capitalist logics\, building upon socialist-era worldviews not to restore state socialism but rather to establish more just social formations—helping materialize the unbecoming of Silicon Valley. The talk will conclude with a discussion of how Silicon Valley imperialism impacts transnational geographies of landlordism\, gesturing to some of McElroy’s newer work. Erin McElroy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington\, where their work focuses upon intersections of gentrification\, technology\, empire\, and racial capitalism\, alongside housing justice organizing and transnational solidarities. McElroy is author of Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times (Duke University Press\, 2024) and coeditor of Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance (PM Press\, 2021). Additionally\, McElroy is cofounder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project—a data visualization\, counter-cartography\, and digital media collective that produces tools\, maps\, reports\, murals\, zines\, oral histories\, and more to further the work of housing justice. At UW\, McElroy runs Landlord Tech Watch\, which produces collaborative research and collective knowledge on the dispossessive technologies of landlordism. We strive to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/4fuhmzc  Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/Jwy95 CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible. ESC is co-sponsoring the event with the Digital Studies Insitute\, the Science\, Technology\, & Society Program\, Institute for Research on Women and Gender\, Department of Communication & Media
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/silicon-valley-imperialism-techno-fantasies-and-frictions/
LOCATION:Room 1040 (Multipurpose Room) LSA Building
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250123T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250123T200000
DTSTAMP:20250113T155624Z
CREATED:20240904T215500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250113T155624Z
UID:3316-1737655200-1737662400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Search Engines: Molly Soda
DESCRIPTION:Molly Soda is a NYC-based artist\, designer\, writer\, and educator. Her distinctly post-internet creative practice bridges the worlds of performance art and Internet art\, often drawing from her own experience as an Incredibly-Online individual as well as from a rich archive of digital artifacts accumulated over the past two decades. Her work spans a variety of social media platforms and modes\, and has been presented both online and in gallery installations. Please find more information about the talk here. Please register for the talk here: https://forms.gle/GnfChLegHMPN36Jd6 The talk is hosted by Search Engines: Art\, Tech\, Justice and the DISCO Network\, housed in the University of Michigan’s Digital Studies Institute. ESC is co-sponsoring the talk with\, Arts Initiative\, Department of Communication and Media\, Department of the History of Art\, Department of Film\, Television\, and Media\, and Institute for Research on Women and Gender.  
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/molly-soda/
LOCATION:Helmut Stern Auditorium Museum of Art
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241107T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241107T130000
DTSTAMP:20241107T132327Z
CREATED:20241018T031008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241107T132327Z
UID:3436-1730980800-1730984400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Lilly Irani | Algorithms of Suspicion: Quasi-criminalization and the erosion of work
DESCRIPTION:Also streamed online via Zoom during the event. Abstract This talk examines the combination of policies\, practices\, and algorithms of suspicion that control workers’ access to wages and work on digital labor platforms. I show how “fraud” acts as a quasi-legal category that legitimizes and protects platform operators’ unilateral decisions to fire workers. This case study begins with the problem of opaque account suspensions suffered by good faith workers on the platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. Through an investigation of patents\, research papers\, and industry documentation\, the chapter constructs a view of the models and assumptions Amazon deploys to guess the difference between good and bad workers. These algorithms and the opaque organizational routines that deploy them submit workers to automated surveillance\, suspicion\, and terminating action – managing workers at scale and at a distance. These practices may have discriminatory consequences\, sometimes in ways recognized by legally recognized protected categories and sometimes not. I conclude by arguing that existing digital rights frameworks must be revised to give workers rights and protections against platforms’ algorithmic forms of management.  \nBio \nLilly Irani is an Associate Professor of Communication & Science Studies at University of California\, San Diego where she is the Faculty Director of the UC San Diego Labor Center. She also serves as  affiliate faculty in Computer Science\, the Design Lab\, Institute for Practical Ethics\, and the program in Critical Gender Studies. She is author of Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India (Princeton University Press\, 2019) and Redacted (with Jesse Marx) (Taller California\, 2021). Chasing Innovation has been awarded the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for feminist anthropological research on work\, science\, or technology\, including biomedicine. Her research examines the cultural politics of high-tech work and the counter-practices they generate\, as both an ethnographer\, a designer\, and a former technology worker. She is a co-founder of the digital worker advocacy organization Turkopticon. Her work has appeared at ACM SIGCHI\, New Media & Society\, Science\, Technology & Human Values\, South Atlantic Quarterly\, and other venues. She sits on the Editorial Committee of Public Culture and on the Editorial Advisory Boards of New Technology\, Work\, and Employment and Design and Culture. She has a Ph.D. in Informatics from University of California\, Irvine. \nThis talk is hosted by Michigan AI seminar series and Women in Computing Seminar series at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department\, co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/lilly-irani-algorithms-of-suspicion-quasi-criminalization-and-the-erosion-of-wor/
LOCATION:BBB 3725
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241101T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241101T150000
DTSTAMP:20241031T180713Z
CREATED:20240904T184304Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241031T180713Z
UID:3298-1730469600-1730473200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Voting While Misled | Social Media\, Disinformation and the Election
DESCRIPTION:November’s election brings with it unprecedented disinformation technologies\, from new uses of social media platforms to generative AI. Join our panel of experts to discuss how our institutions\, platforms\, and politicians are both combating and enabling this threat to democracy. Panel discussion to be followed by an interactive Q&A with the viewers. A conversation with Ceren Budak\, associate professor of information\, School of Information\, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science\, College of Engineering and faculty associate\, Center for Political Studies\, Institute for Social Research; Ariel Hasell\, assistant professor of communication and media\, College of Literature Science\, and the Arts; and Barbara McQuade\, professor from practice\, University of Michigan Law School. Moderated by Christian Sandvig\, H Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Digital Media\, professor of information\, School of Information\, faculty associate\, Center for Political Studies\, Institute for Social Research\, professor of communication and media\, professor in the Digital Studies Institute\, College of Literature\, Science\, and the Arts and professor of art and design\, Penny W Stamps School of Art and Design. Please RSVP here. And watch us on YouTube. This event is part of the InfoSpeaks series and is co-sponsored by the Center for ESC. See the event listing on the website here: https://esc.umich.edu/event/online-event-disinformation-and-the-election/  
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/online-event-disinformation-and-the-election/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241024T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241024T190000
DTSTAMP:20241003T213231Z
CREATED:20240919T173240Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241003T213231Z
UID:3348-1729789200-1729796400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC Attacks | A Benefit for computing researchers facing targeted harassment
DESCRIPTION:Join ESC affiliates and their guests for our Fall mixer at the Elks. We will assemble care packages for student researchers in computing and information who are under attack. Materials will be provided. Free parking in rear. Download the digital flyer here. RSVP Required: Click here to RSVP Formed in 1922 during racial segregation\, the Crawford Elks Lodge has been essential to the Ann Arbor African-American community for over 100 years. It provides service to the community as well as a place to gather\, socialize\, and support one another. No Elks membership is required to attend this event. DONATION BOX ON SITE: Bring your unwanted tech company-branded clothing\, bags\, and gifts to be repurposed for the ESC $wag project.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-attacks-a-benefit-for-computing-researchers-facing-targeted-harassment/
LOCATION:James L. Crawford (Pratt) Elks Lodge #322\, 220 Sunset Rd\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48103
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241007T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241007T173000
DTSTAMP:20241103T025133Z
CREATED:20240906T161716Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241103T025133Z
UID:3319-1728316800-1728322200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Paula Harper | Viral: Metaphor\, Narrative\, Music
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic\, “going viral” had nonetheless become commonplace—the epidemiological metaphor characterizing an increasingly-familiar trajectory of explosive circulation\, remix\, and reportage expanding from individual nodes of audiovisual content online. This presentation briefly historicizes and contextualizes the contagious concept\, before suggesting how “virality”—as aesthetic repertoire\, as popular narrative\, as social logic made concrescent in platform architectures—might also be understood as a form of musicality. I argue that participation in the production\, watching\, listening to\, circulating\, or sharing of “viral” digital internet objects has constituted a significant site of 21st-century musical practice. And across the 21st century\, digital platforms have adapted to facilitate this viral musicality\, using music’s positive capacities—aesthetic pleasure\, communal participation\, social connectivity—to enable corporate profit-making\, corral attention\, and incentivize acceptance of increasing technocapital enclosure of the internet and everyday life. Please RSVP here. This event is hosted by STeMs Speakers Series and co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/paula-harper-viral-metaphor-narrative-music/
LOCATION:1014 Tisch Hall\, 435 S State St\, Ann Arbor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241007
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241015
DTSTAMP:20240911T173657Z
CREATED:20240904T214503Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240911T173657Z
UID:3309-1728266400-1728871199@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:LGBTQ+ VR Museum Open House
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the LGBTQ+ VR Museum Open House hosted by the Digital Studies Institute and the Just XR Futures Lab from Oct. 7 through Oct. 11\, 2024. The LGBTQ+ VR Museum was created by DiVRse Technologies\, a world-leading immersive studio that produces ground-breaking digital experiences using VR and XR technologies. Disrupting historical gatekeeping and erasure of marginalized voices\, DiVRse Technologies uses VR to share stories and artifacts curated directly from the queer community. The LGBTQ+ community globally contributed dozens of personal items scanned into 3D and 2D artworks\, that contextualize their lived experiences. Layers of interactive content appear and programmatically respond to visitors’ emotions in real time as they explore the VR museum. All are welcome. The LGBTQ+ VR Museum was designed to be accessible\, so people of all abilities can experience the exhibits\, artifacts\, and stories. Please register at U-M Sessions at the following link: https://myumi.ch/zXyd9 We want to make our events accessible to all participants. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate or have any questions\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/lgbtq-vr-museum-open-house/
LOCATION:2001 Modern Languages Building
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241001T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241001T163000
DTSTAMP:20240923T193845Z
CREATED:20240923T194008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240923T193845Z
UID:3305-1727794800-1727800200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Tiara Roxanne | Digital Technology and Body Memory - Conversation with Rebecca Uliasz
DESCRIPTION:The use of digital technologies and platformitization have become a more normalized way of connecting which shapes our relations and ultimately\, how we intimise. Where we might mutually recognize a shared togetherness within the digital sphere\, we might also discover a feeling of togetherness\, alienation\, horror or even seduction. I ask questions of how digital intimacy fabricates how our bodies move toward one another\, gather or isolate? We are intimate with the algorithms\, social media platforms and digital infrastructures embedded within the technological which intensify feelings of horror. Is the horror we see and feel via the algorithm and what we share\, a new form of attunement and intimacy\, is it a new body memory? Tiara Roxanne is a Purhépecha (descendant) Mestiza scholar and artist based in Berlin. Dr. Roxanne’s work is dedicated to rethinking the ethics of AI through an anti-colonial and cyberfeminist lens. They are currently developing their terminology\, digital attunement and the technological haunt further\, which expands theory and critique regarding body memory and hauntology within socio-technical frameworks. In the recent past\, they developed protocols of trust and safety online with Indigenous communities based in Central and South America. As a performance artist and practitioner\, they work between the digital and the material using textile\, from the space of the body as a site of refusal. Tiara has presented at Images Festival (Toronto)\, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center (NY)\, Trinity Square Video (Toronto)\, European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück)\, University of Applied Arts (Vienna)\, SOAS (London)\, SLU (Madrid)\, Transmediale (Berlin)\, Duke University (NC)\, Tech Open Air (Berlin)\, AMOQA (Athens)\, Zurich University of the Arts (Zurich)\, Autonomous Intercultural Indigenous University (Columbia)\, Utrecht University (NL)\, University of California (San Diego)\, Laboratorio Arte Alameda\, (Mexico City)\, Fuchsbau Festival (Hannover) among others. We strive to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3yTjO2r Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/mZGnV CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/tiara-roxanne-in-conversation-with-rebecca-uliasz-digital-attunement-and-other-hauntologies/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240926T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240926T203000
DTSTAMP:20240913T204449Z
CREATED:20240904T182220Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T204449Z
UID:3284-1727373600-1727382600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Free Screening of Paul Preciado's Orlando
DESCRIPTION:“Come\, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando: A Biography” as his starting point\, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado fashioned the documentary ORLANDO\, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY—a personal essay\, historical analysis\, and social manifesto. For almost a century\, Woolf’s eponymous hero(ine) has inspired readers with their gender fluidity as well as their physical and spiritual metamorphoses across a three-hundred-year span. In making his film\, Preciado invited a diverse group of more than twenty trans and nonbinary people to play the role of Orlando and to participate in this shared biography. Together\, they perform interpretations of the novel\, weaving into Woolf’s narrative their own stories of transition and identity formation. Not content to simply update a groundbreaking work\, Preciado interrogates the relevance of “Orlando” in the ongoing struggle to secure dignity for trans people worldwide. Watch the official trailer here: https://youtu.be/LpGFplNRUmc?si=4TXIapiyMX0YaI7u How to Participate: Register here https://forms.gle/Lc3Zxi8viCeeS7pg8 This event will be in person. Please be sure to register and come early to snag a seat! If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the registration form\, please email Giselle Mills at gimills@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/free-screening-of-paul-preciados-orlando/
LOCATION:232 S State St\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48104
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240924T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240924T163000
DTSTAMP:20240913T204528Z
CREATED:20240904T182206Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T204528Z
UID:3276-1727190000-1727195400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Whit Pow in Conversation with Sheila Murphy | The Deliberate History of Randomness: Determinism\, Race\, Trans Life\, and the History of Random Number Generation
DESCRIPTION:Event Abstract: There is something deliberate about the history of randomness. Computers are often described as “deterministic”: every process that is performed by a computer is pre-determined\, with often formulaic outcomes. “Determinism” is also a historically loaded word—one that has been paired with the term “biological” to justify eugenicist thought related to race\, disability\, and queer and transgender life. What might it mean\, then\, to place these meanings side-by-side\, connecting the long history of ideological determinism in relationship to race\, gender\, and sexuality in the United States alongside the use of determinism in computer science and programming?   Using previously unseen video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s archives along with the 1978 glitch art piece Digital TV Dinner\, I examine the randomized imagery and glitch art produced by the Bally Astrocade\, a video game console and home computer whose software was developed in 1978 by trans programmer and game designer Jamie Faye Fenton. I trace this history of the random through computers\, hardware random number generators like lava lamps and atmospheric noise from radio waves\, the United States census\, and the roots of random number generation in eugenicist thought in the United States.   Speaker Bio: Whit Pow (they/them) is an assistant professor of Media\, Culture\, and Communication at New York University. Their work focuses on queer and transgender (trans) histories of games\, computational media and electronic art. Their latest article\, “How the Computer Taught Us to See\,” will be published this fall in Camera Obscura by Duke University Press.   How to Participate: We want to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3YyzMJN   Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/egGZr CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/whit-pow-in-conversation-with-sheila-murphy-the-deliberate-history-of-randomness-determinism-race-trans-life-and-the-history-of-random-number-generation/
LOCATION:Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space\, 500 Church St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240412T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240412T180000
DTSTAMP:20240407T141356Z
CREATED:20240329T142255Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240407T141356Z
UID:3219-1712916000-1712944800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:2024 Symposium - ESC: Residues or What Remains
DESCRIPTION:ABSTRACTThey say: AI is here. It is inevitable. It is unprecedented. It is the future. Underneath these claims of inevitably and futurity are residues of technological pasts and presents. Things that stick and smear\, pasts that linger. What if we stick with what remains\, with these residues—data not used\, lands wasted\, bodies rendered disposable\, labor discarded\, life that isn’t attractive to computation\, tricky histories of technological and political moments? What if we attend to residual labor\, the work of cleaning up\, of redirecting vision\, of what is soon to be replaced by machines? What lifeforms and futures with technology might become possible then? For this theme year symposium\, five incredible external speakers will join eight local scholars for a day of conversation and thought about residues\, in all their sticky complexity. HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the Ehrlicher Room (North Quad Room 3100). RSVP encouraged for in-person attendance and required if you would like to join for lunch. Please RSVP here. Registration required for virtual webinar attendance. Please register here. SPEAKERS Yangyang Cheng (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar\, award-winning writer\, and public intellectual. Currently\, she is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center\, where her work focuses on the development of science and technology in China and US-China relations. Her essays have appeared in numerous outlets including The New York Times and WIRED\, and won several awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia\, Asian American Journalists Association\, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Trained as a particle physicist\, she worked on the Large Hadron Collider for over a decade\, and received her PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.    Yousif Hassan is an assistant professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. His work examines the social\, economic\, and political implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)\, blockchain\, and big data focusing on the relationship between race\, digital technology\, and technoscientific capitalism. Hassan’s interest is at the intersection of social and racial justice\, and technology policy. His most recent project investigates the development of AI and its innovation ecosystem across multiple African countries focusing on data governance and the sociotechnical knowledge production practices of the state\, scientists\, and the tech industry.    Tung-Hui Hu (he/his) is a poet and a media theorist. He is the author of five books\, most recently Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection (MIT Press\, 2022)\, A Prehistory of the Cloud (MIT Press\, 2015) and Greenhouses\, Lighthouses (Copper Canyon Press\, 2013). He was awarded the 2022-23 Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome\, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Michigan.    Leah Horgan (they/them) is a Providence-based critical informatics scholar whose work examines the intersection of data technology and urbanism through research\, art/media\, and through/in support of housing justice and abolitionist grassroots organizing. They received their PhD from the University of California\, Irvine and are currently a Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow based at Northeastern University and an instructor at Olin College of Engineering.    Pelle Tracey is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information. He uses a mixture of methods to investigate infrastructure\, bureaucracy\, algorithms\, and data work\, particularly in frontline government contexts. His current work is an ethnographic examination of how cities in the US make sense of homelessness through data\, and how people experiencing homelessness make sense of this state response.    Kalindi Vora is Professor of Ethnicity\, Race\, and Migration\, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Her first book\, Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of Outsourced Labor (Rachel Carson Book Prize 2018)\, takes up questions of technology\, colonialism and raced and gendered labor under globalization. Her second book is Surrogate Humanity: Race Robotics and the Politics of Technological Futures (Duke 2019)\, co-authored with Neda Atanasoski\, a project on the racial and gendered politics of robotics and artificial intelligence. With the Precarity Lab\, she is co-author of Technoprecarious (2020)\, which tracks the role of digital technologies in multiplying precarity. A book of her collected work on transnational gestational surrogacy in India is forthcoming under the title\, Reimagining Reproduction: Surrogacy\, Labour and Technologies of Human Reproduction.    Silvia Margot Lindtner (she/her) is a writer and ethnographer. Her research focuses on the cultures and politics of technology innovation\, including the labor necessary to incubate entrepreneurial life and data-driven futures. She is the author of the award-winning book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press\, 2020)\, and co-author of the multigraph Technoprecarious (Goldsmiths/MIT Press 2020). She is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information and Director of the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC).    \n\nPatricia Garcia examines how Latinx and Black communities develop agentic relationships with technology and gain greater over their data. Her current work is a collaboration with public libraries to design computational justice programs that support Latinx and Black girls in seeing themselves as active decision-makers who can leverage technologies to participate in individual and collective action. \n  \n\n Weixian Pan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on politics of visuality\, media infrastructure\, and environmental media. Her current book project examines how China’s geopolitical aspirations have been hyper-mediated and entangled with the logic of frontier-making\, between the mid-twentieth century and the present day. Her work appeared in journals such as Asiascape: Digital Asia\, Culture Machine\, Journal of Environmental Media\, and Television and New Media. She received her PhD in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University\, Montreal. She is also a recipient of the 2024-2025 ACLS/Luce Fellowship in China Studies.    Cindy Lin (She/Her) is an Assistant Professor at the College of Information Sciences and Technology and director of the Critical Technocultures Lab at Pennsylvania State University. Her first book project explores statecraft and computing practices in the environmental and mapping sciences in Indonesia and the professional identities and government institutions that emerged from these efforts. She has published two co-authored books entitled Technoprecarious (MIT Press/Goldsmiths Press\, 2020) and Digital Energetics (University of Minnesota Press\, 2023). At the University of Michigan\, she earned a Ph.D. in Information. She was also a postdoctoral scholar at Cornell University and a visiting fellow at the Digital Life initiative at Cornell Tech.     Alyssa Paredes is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist researching plantation capitalism\, environmental activism\, scientific conventions\, and transnational trade between the Philippines and Japan. Her work appears in academic outlets in anthropology\, geography\, food studies\, and Asian Studies\, as well as in the digital environmental humanities project\, Feral Atlas: The More-than-Human Anthropocene\, edited by Anna Tsing\, Jennifer Deger\, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. She holds a PhD with distinction from Yale University.    Matthew Bui (he/him) is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and an affiliate with the NYU Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Bui’s research foregrounds the local and racial politics of data-driven technologies\, policy\, and platforms\, in order to identify and explore community-driven interventions for outcomes of social and racial justice. His current book project\, Appetite for Data\, explores how digital foodie platforms increasingly mediate important community debates about race\, class\, gentrification\, and cultural and neighborhood “authenticity.”     Stephanie Jordan is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Information and core faculty in the Center for Gender in a Global Context at Michigan State University.  She is a previous tech developer now current ethnographer interested in the social and ethical consequences of big data in the climate and ocean sciences with a focus on sustainability across two axes: technical (materials\, maintenance\, quality control\, calibration) and human (labor\, equity\, resilience)\, and their co-construction. I work in direct collaboration with scientists to enact inclusive principles in the full pipeline of scientific work from problem identification\, design\, deployment and modeling through knowledge dissemination through principles of co-design\, community engagement and participatory methods. My work operates at the intersection of environmental\, design and social justice.    Emilia Yang (She/her/hers) is an artist\, organizer and researcher. Her research explores the role of memory\, violence\, emotions\, performance\, and participation in the political imagination. Her art practice utilizes expanded forms of digital media (XR\, transmedia\, web\, interactive\, films\, archives\, performance\, games and public interventions) for the creation of community-based feminist\, anti-racist and transformative justice projects and futures. Yang received a PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at U-M Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design\, with a focus on Anti-Racism by Design. Personal website www.emiliayang.org
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/2024-symposium-esc-residues-or-what-remains/
LOCATION:Ehrichler Room\, 3100 North Quad\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240408
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240411
DTSTAMP:20240404T014436Z
CREATED:20240404T013538Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T014436Z
UID:3237-1712541600-1712714399@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Social Media & Society in India
DESCRIPTION:  How to Attend:The conference takes place Apr 8-9\, 2024 at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor\, and is free to attend online or in person and brings together a great line-up of speakers. Registration is free for both online and in-person. Registered attendees can view all the talks and also sign up for office hours with the speakers. This year’s line-up includes a variety of topics including political and electoral social media use\, platform governance\, brand management\, finance\, healthcare\, and hate speech. Details\, a full program\, and registration info for in person and online viewing can be found here: https://influencers.conference.si.umich.edu About:The University of Michigan is hosting the fourth iteration of its hybrid conference on Social Media and Society in India featuring a host of speakers to discuss various ways in which social media is impacting contemporary life in India. The event is a premier venue for conversations around social media and society in India.   This event is hosted by the School of Information\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC)\, the Center for South Asia Studies\,  the Wallace House Center for Journalists\, the Department of Communications and Media\, the Digital Studies Institute\, and the Neely Center\, Marshall School\, University of Southern California.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/social-media-society-in-india/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240405T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240405T163000
DTSTAMP:20240404T012313Z
CREATED:20240329T141229Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T012313Z
UID:3217-1712329200-1712334600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Anna Greenspan: Mou Zongsan and AI ethics
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the North Quad Room 3100 or virtually. Please register here to attend online. TITLEMou Zongsan and AI ethics SPEAKERAnna Greenspan is associate professor of global contemporary media\, NYU Shanghai. ABSTRACTChina has a singular media ecology. Tencent and Alibaba are giant internet platforms that rival Facebook and Google. Urban environments have been entirely reshaped by biometrics and QR codes. Mobile payments have practically replaced cash. My work stems from the basic premise that to understand the contemporary mediasphere requires an engagement with China. This talk will draw from my new book China and the Wireless Undertow: Media as Wave Philosophy published in the Technicities book series at Edinburgh University Press in 2023 and the upcoming volume Machine Decision is Not Final: The History and Future of China\, which is co-edited with Benjamin Bratton and Bogna Konior and will be published by Urbanomic/MIT Press in 2024. This talk will focus on the work of philosopher Mou Zongsan and argue that a synthesis of media theory and New Confucian thought can deepen and enrich our thinking about AI ethics. This talk is co-sponsored by ESC and the LSA Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/anna-greenspan-mou-zongsan-and-ai-ethics/
LOCATION:Ehrichler Room\, 3100 North Quad\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240308T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240308T160000
DTSTAMP:20240305T212938Z
CREATED:20240305T212938Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240305T212938Z
UID:3215-1709910000-1709913600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Daniel Susser: Exploitation and Platform Power
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the North Quad Room 2435. TITLEExploitation and Platform Power SPEAKER Daniel Susser is an associate professor of information science at Cornell University. ABSTRACTBig tech “exploits” us. This has become a common refrain among critics of digital platforms. It gives voice to a shared sense that technology firms are somehow mistreating people—taking advantage of us\, extracting from us—in a way that other data-driven harms\, such as surveillance and algorithmic bias\, fail to capture. But what does “exploitation” entail\, exactly\, and how do platforms perpetrate it? What would a theory of digital exploitation add to existing discussions about platform governance? In this paper\, I argue that claims of exploitation help surface important but undertheorized normative intuitions about the platform economy—intuitions about legitimacy\, consent\, and unfair bargains—and that work on exploitation in philosophy and political theory offers indispensable conceptual and normative tools for navigating and addressing these problems. This talk is co-sponsored by ESC and the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/daniel-susser-exploitation-and-platform-power/
LOCATION:Room 2435\, North Quad\, 105 State Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48104\, United States
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