Presented By: Institute for Research on Women and Gender
The Data of Life Writing: Gender, Race, and the Digital
Co-presented by the Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for Research on Women & Gender
Contemporary explorations of life writing, capaciously defined, unfold by means of new methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Online platforms have released an unprecedented flood of public writing about the self, and scholars have developed ways to navigate the stream. At the same time, digitizing the auto/biographical record affords scholars new avenues for analysis of life writing genres at scale. This one-day conference showcases research by renowned scholars investigating life writing in and through digital environments, as well as emerging work by U. of Michigan graduate students. Gender and race serve as critical frames for the day's discussion.
Schedule
9:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:20 a.m. Welcome
9:30 - 10:30 a.m. Alison Booth (English, University of Virginia)
Crowding Attention: Prosopography, Women, and Nationality
"Collective Biographies of Women (CBW), an accessible bibliography and database, brings to light a genre of printed books that represent diverse women. This study of prosopography (or biographies of individuals in sets and networks) unites literary history, narrative theory, gender, and digital humanities. This talk discuss the concept of prosopography and the issues of “crowding attention” in large-scale collective representation, including databases and social media. Data and governments similarly seek to determine birthplace, citizenship, residence—facets of identity that both individually and en masse seem to require narration rather than the entry of facts. Yet large-scale or collective representations serve various purposes that also open opportunities for women in history and today."
10:30 - 10:45 a.m. Coffee break
10:45 a.m-12:15 Lightning Talks by U-M Graduate Students Faithe Day, Jina Kim, Liz Rodrigues, Emily Waples, and Jessica Zychowicz
12:15 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch at Humanities Institute Atrium
1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Aimée Morrison (English, University of Waterloo)
Mashup, remix, rewrite: new media studies and auto/biography theory and practice
“This talk, based on my book in progress, takes new media technology as both the instrument and the object of study, looking for the really messy, ambiguous, contested bits where tools use people, and people use tools, but the ascription of agency is difficult and the performance of scholarship beset by quandaries. This is a mashup of literary close readings with design thinking, a remix of techno-utopianism, a reading of the takeup and reshaping of consumer-grade tools into new cultural practices of ubiquitous self-representation, filtered through the lens of auto/biography theory.”
2:40 - 3:00 p.m. Discussion wrap up with Sidonie Smith, Director of the Institute for the Humanities
Contemporary explorations of life writing, capaciously defined, unfold by means of new methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Online platforms have released an unprecedented flood of public writing about the self, and scholars have developed ways to navigate the stream. At the same time, digitizing the auto/biographical record affords scholars new avenues for analysis of life writing genres at scale. This one-day conference showcases research by renowned scholars investigating life writing in and through digital environments, as well as emerging work by U. of Michigan graduate students. Gender and race serve as critical frames for the day's discussion.
Schedule
9:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:20 a.m. Welcome
9:30 - 10:30 a.m. Alison Booth (English, University of Virginia)
Crowding Attention: Prosopography, Women, and Nationality
"Collective Biographies of Women (CBW), an accessible bibliography and database, brings to light a genre of printed books that represent diverse women. This study of prosopography (or biographies of individuals in sets and networks) unites literary history, narrative theory, gender, and digital humanities. This talk discuss the concept of prosopography and the issues of “crowding attention” in large-scale collective representation, including databases and social media. Data and governments similarly seek to determine birthplace, citizenship, residence—facets of identity that both individually and en masse seem to require narration rather than the entry of facts. Yet large-scale or collective representations serve various purposes that also open opportunities for women in history and today."
10:30 - 10:45 a.m. Coffee break
10:45 a.m-12:15 Lightning Talks by U-M Graduate Students Faithe Day, Jina Kim, Liz Rodrigues, Emily Waples, and Jessica Zychowicz
12:15 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch at Humanities Institute Atrium
1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Aimée Morrison (English, University of Waterloo)
Mashup, remix, rewrite: new media studies and auto/biography theory and practice
“This talk, based on my book in progress, takes new media technology as both the instrument and the object of study, looking for the really messy, ambiguous, contested bits where tools use people, and people use tools, but the ascription of agency is difficult and the performance of scholarship beset by quandaries. This is a mashup of literary close readings with design thinking, a remix of techno-utopianism, a reading of the takeup and reshaping of consumer-grade tools into new cultural practices of ubiquitous self-representation, filtered through the lens of auto/biography theory.”
2:40 - 3:00 p.m. Discussion wrap up with Sidonie Smith, Director of the Institute for the Humanities
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