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DTSTAMP:20261007T121735
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20261105T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20261105T173000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:DISCO Network Presents - Is AI Inevitable? Insight from Hypecel vs. Technoskepticist Perspectives
DESCRIPTION:Stories about artificial intelligence often imagine the future as inevitable: AI will transform our jobs\, reshape our relationships\, and increasingly make decisions once left to people. But what happens if we refuse to treat that future as already decided? This panel will discuss two contrasting personas for thinking about generative AI: “hypecels\,” who embrace AI’s promises so enthusiastically that technological change can appear unstoppable\, and “technoskepticists\,”who question the larger social\, political\, and cultural interest AI serves. Ultimately\, we aim to think critically about AI not simply as a collection of powerful new tools\, but as part of a much larger struggle over who gets to imagine\, build\, and control the future.\n\nThis event is open to the public\, and we encourage all interested faculty\, graduate students\, and undergraduate students to attend.\n\nFree sandwiches from Potbelly will be provided to the first 100 attendees.\n\nA corresponding opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to enjoy a free networking lunch with the panelists will be available. Interested students may register for this session using the same form as the main event.\n\nAdvance registration is recommended:\n\nRegister to attend in-person: https://sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/22871\n\nRegister to attend on Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_V1IsoIFFQ5K6fdVIS00FyA\n\nThis event will be recorded. A full recording will be uploaded to the DISCO Network YouTube channel within approximately one week of the event.\n\nMeet the Panelists:\n\nNina-Simone Edwards is the Technology and Research Librarian at Washington and Lee University School of Law. Her research examines privacy\, technology governance\, and information justice\, with particular attention to how race\, vulnerability\, and digital access shape experiences of surveillance and cybersecurity harms. She recently completed both a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown Law's Institute for Technology Law & Policy\, where she worked on the Redesigning the Governance Stack Project\, and a Master's in Library and Information Science from The Catholic University of America. She received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.\n\nNgozi Harrison is a Ph.D. Student at the University of California\, Los Angeles\, in Information Studies\, whose research primarily investigates the relationship between machine learning\, quantitative and computational methods\, and society. His work critiques algorithmic culture and computational reason and sits at the intersection of Black Studies\, Critical Quantitative and Computational Methods\, and Critical Information Studies. He is currently working on his dissertation proposal\, which critically examines the underlying values\, norms\, and assumptions of machine learning practice to develop new frameworks for liberatory technical practice and justice-oriented technologies.\n\nDJ is an interdisciplinary scholar of race\, technology\, and learning and an Assistant Professor of Computing at Chicago State University. She particularly examines how and if researchers\, educators\, and technologists might use and create technologies toward liberatory learning and living. DJ (Stephanie T. Jones) earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Learning Sciences and an M.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University. She holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University. \n\nMeet the Moderator:\n\nRayvon Fouché holds a joint appointment as Professor of Communication Studies\, School of Communication\, and Professor of Journalism\, Medill School of Journalism\, Media\, and Integrative Marketing Communications\, and is currently Associate Dean for Graduate Education in the School of Communication. His major publications include Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation (Johns Hopkins University Press\, 2003)\, Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power (University of Minnesota Press\, 2004)\, Technology Studies (Sage Publications\, 2008)\, the 4th Edition of the Handbook of Science & Technology Studies (MIT Press\, 2016)\, Game Changer: The Technoscientific Revolution in Sports (Johns Hopkins University Press\, 2017)\, and Technoskepticism: Between Possibility and Refusal (Stanford University Press\, 2025). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Science\, Technology\, and Society.\n\nWe want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART captioning services will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate\, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.
UID:149370-21906283@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/149370
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Information and Technology,Digital Studies,Digital Studies Institute,Artificial Intelligence,Social Justice,Technology,Digital Media,Big Tech,Computational Science,Digital Culture,Digital Cultures
LOCATION:Weiser Hall - 10th Floor
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260929T133326
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20270128T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20270128T173000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:DISCO Network Presents - Trans Coalition-Building and Digital Activism
DESCRIPTION:Event description coming soon.\n\nThis event is open to the public\, and we encourage all interested faculty\, graduate students\, and undergraduate students to attend.\n\nAdvance registration is recommended:\n\nRegister to attend on Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K4_jYtqoRB-nwC-diXGR1w \n\nThis event will be recorded. A full recording will be uploaded to the DISCO Network YouTube channel within approximately one week of the event.\n\nMeet the Panelists:\n\nAlejandra Caraballo is a civil rights attorney and Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic. Her scholarship and practice address the intersection of civil rights law\, technology policy\, and institutional accountability\, with particular focus on the areas of digital privacy in areas of stigmatized healthcare around reproductive care and gender affirming care. She is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts\, and is admitted to the Southern District of New York and the Eleventh\, Ninth\, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Her litigation practice has included impact cases on healthcare discrimination\, employment discrimination\, and LGBTQ civil rights\, including work on Kadel v. Folwell\, Lange v. Houston County\, and Boston Alliance v. HHS. Alejandra’s published legal scholarship includes The Anti-Transgender Medical Expert Industry (Journal of Law\, Medicine & Ethics\, 2022)\, Extradition in Post-Roe America (CUNY Law Review\, 2023)\, and The Death of Medical Privacy for Trans Patients (forthcoming\, Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy\, 2026). Her scholarship has been cited in law reviews\, amicus briefs\, and media coverage of LGBTQ civil rights litigation. \n\nCeleste Trianon is a transfeminine jurist and activist\, based out of Montréal (in the traditional lands of the Kanien'keháka) and active all across Canada. Celeste holds a Bachelor of Laws from the Université de Montréal and a Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School (Toronto). She is currently working with the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund in Toronto\, while completing her lawyer licensure process with the Law Society of Ontario. Through Juritrans\, the legal clinic she founded prior to starting her first law degree\, over a thousand trans people in Québec\, Nova Scotia and other provinces have been able to get information and accompaniment in applying for legal name changes. Celeste has created opportunities for 2SLGBTQ+ law students to be involved with their own community through partnerships with various Canadian law schools. She has equally coordinated several judicial interventions defending the rights of trans people\, both at trial (notably in A.B. v. Québec Minister of Education) and at the Supreme Court of Canada (namely Hak/EMSB and UR Pride). In her capacity as a content creator\, she has built a following of 22\,000+ on Instagram\, primarily through breaking the news on developments in transgender issues in Canada. Celeste maintains Canada's Anti-Trans Risk Map\, a resource extensively used in academia\, conferences\, and even by trans U.S. citizens seeking to flee their country.\n\nMeet the Moderator:\n\nM. Remi Yergeau is a Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies and Communication and an associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Carleton University. They also direct the Digital Accessible Futures Lab as a part of the DISCO Network. Remi is an autistic academic\, and their scholarly interests include rhetoric & writing studies\, digital studies\, trans and queer rhetorics\, disability studies\, and theories of mind. Their book\, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness (Duke UP\, 2017)\, is a winner of the 2017 Modern Language Association First Book Prize\, the 2019 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Book Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship\, and the 2019 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award. Along with 13 colleagues from DISCO\, Remi is a co-author of Technoskepticism (Stanford UP\, 2025).\n\nWe want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART captioning services will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate\, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.
UID:150719-21910002@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/150719
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Activism,Digital Culture,Digital Studies,Digital Studies Institute,Gender Studies,Trans Studies
LOCATION:Off Campus Location
CONTACT:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260929T133403
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20270226T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20270226T153000
SUMMARY:Lecture / Discussion:DISCO Network Presents - From Community Center to Content Farm: New Modes of Digitality for Black Women and Girls
DESCRIPTION:Event description coming soon.\n\nThis event is open to the public\, and we encourage all interested faculty\, graduate students\, and undergraduate students to attend.\n\nRefreshments will be provided to the first 100 attendees.\n\nA corresponding networking opportunity with the panelists will be available for undergraduate and graduate students. Interested students may register for this session using the same form as the main event. More information coming soon. \n\nAdvance registration is recommended:\n\nRegister to attend in-person: https://sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/session/111880\n\nRegister to attend on Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jmr7uP-iSuyjO0RgeRTl1Q\n\nThis event will be recorded. A full recording will be uploaded to the DISCO Network YouTube channel within approximately one week of the event.\n\nMeet the Panelists:\n\nDr. Aria S. Halliday is an award-winning author who specializes in the study of cultural constructions of black girlhood and womanhood in material\, visual\, and digital culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Her research is published in venues such as The Black Scholar\, Cultural Studies\, Feminist Theory\, Girlhood Studies\, and Women\, Gender\, and Families of Color.  She is the author of Black Girls and How We Fail Them (UNC Press\, 2025) and Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture (University of Illinois Press\, 2022). She edited and introduced The Black Girlhood Studies Collection (Women’s Press\, 2019). She was an Institute for Citizens and Scholars Career Enhancement Fellow (2020-2021)\, a Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin (2022-2023)\, and the 2021 Stuart Hall Foundation x Cultural Studies Award winner for her article “Twerk Sumn!: Theorizing Black Girl Epistemology in the Body.” Currently\, she is the Marie Rich Endowed Professor in Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and program in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She’s working on two books\, A Black Feminist Guide to Automobility\, and In a 90s Kind of World: Black Girls and Women in Popular Culture. She is also the owner and founder of Plume & Prosper\, a wellness retreat experience.\n\nNessa Keddo is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Media\, Diversity and Technology at King’s College London. She is Programme Director for MA Global Media Industries and the Department’s EDI Lead. Nessa’s research explores the intersection of diversity practices and technological deployment in the media industries. More recently with the onset of automated praxis through generative AI\, her work explores the affordances and challenges of digitised and platform labour\, particularly for marginalised practitioners and independent creators. Nessa’s research is grounded in critical approaches to the embedding of diversity practices in the media industries. She is co-author of the upcoming book Race\, Racism and Diversity in the Cultural and Creative Industries (2025)\, which focuses on the business case for diversity\, specifically since the commercialisation of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.\n\nAshleigh Greene Wade is Associate Professor of Digital Studies\, jointly appointed in Media Studies and African American Studies. Broadly speaking\, her work traverses the fields of Black girlhood studies\, digital and visual media studies\, Black Feminist theory\, and digital humanities. Wade has a Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University and is an alumna of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies Fellowship Program. Her work on digital Blackness appears in The Black Scholar\, National Political Science Review\, Women\, Gender\, and Families of Color\, Visual Arts Research\, and Camera Obscura: Feminism\, Culture\, and Media Studies. Wade’s forthcoming monograph\, Black Girl Autopoetics: Agency and Possibility in Everyday Digital Practice (Duke University Press)\, explores the role of Black girls’ digital practices in documenting and preserving everyday Black life.\n\nDr. Rianna Walcott is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland\, and Associate Director of the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab as part of the DISCO Network. An alumna of the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP)\, Dr. Walcott earned her PhD in Digital Humanities at King's College London for her research on Black (and specifically Black British) communication practices and digital media\, locating the evolution of a hybrid ‘Black British’ identity within the wider Black diaspora. She combines digital research\, Black feminist praxis\, decolonial studies\, arts and culture\, and mental health advocacy in her work. In the time left over\, she moonlights as a jazz singer.\n\nMeet the Moderator\n\nCatherine Knight Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland - College Park where she directs the Black Communication and Technology lab (BCaT) as a part of the Digital Inquiry\, Speculation\, Collaboration\, & Optimism (DISCO) Network funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is a 2024-26 Just Tech Fellow. Her research focuses on race\, gender\, and media\, with a specific emphasis on Black culture and discourse and digital communication. She examines representations of marginalized communities in the media and how groups resist oppression and practice joy using online technology to create spaces of community. \n\nWe want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART captioning services will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate\, please email Cherice Chan at chericec@umich.edu.
UID:149740-21907047@events.umich.edu
URL:https://events.umich.edu/event/149740
CLASS:PUBLIC
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CATEGORIES:Digital Culture,Diversity,Diversity Equity and Inclusion,Feminism,Gender,african and afroamerican studies,african and african american studies,African American,Digital Scholarship,Digital Cultures,digital humanities,Digital Media,Digital Studies,Digital Studies Institute,digital technology
LOCATION:Weiser Hall - 10th Floor
CONTACT:
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