Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. Theorizing the Web Presents: Surveillance of Black Lives (July 16, 2020 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75117 75117-19269550@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, July 16, 2020 7:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Dr. Allissa Richardson and Mutale Nkonde will discuss the layered and multifaceted impact of surveillance on Black people in the context of the Movement for Black Lives and the Covid-19 pandemic. Moderated by TtW Committee member and professor of Digital Studies, Dr. Apryl Williams, this talk will demonstrate how facial recognition systems used in policing; tracing software associated with the pandemic; and Black death imagery have created a treacherous techno-mediascape that extends both state matrices of power and systems of racialized, anti-Black oppression in the United States. This discussion will be streamed live on the TtW YouTube page and on Zoom. A recording will be available on our website. You can sign up here to receive the Zoom link and reminders about future episodes of TtW Presents:

https://theorizingtheweb.org/p/p2020/schedule/

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Presentation Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:04:08 -0400 2020-07-16T19:00:00-04:00 2020-07-16T21:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Presentation ttw
Digital Studies Institute Workshop Series: Privacy and Surveillance in Remote Teaching Platforms (August 4, 2020 3:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75030 75030-19324449@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 3:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Kelly Cruz and Stephanie Rosen discuss the relationship between access to tools and the loss of privacy, and invite conversation about alternative models for online connection and community in remote classes.

Kelly Cruz is Associate General Counsel for U-M, specializing in student privacy rights, disability accommodations, student misconduct, and student policies.

Stephanie Rosen is a Senior Associate Librarian and Accessibility Specialist who brings insights from disability studies and activism to librarianship and digital scholarship.

Register here to join via Zoom Videoconferencing: https://forms.gle/45XzAcPiirZ6WAf97

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:22:54 -0400 2020-08-04T15:30:00-04:00 2020-08-04T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Workshop / Seminar privacy
Digital Studies Institute Workshop Series: Recognizing and Reducing Student Instability (August 11, 2020 3:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75023 75023-19159634@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, August 11, 2020 3:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

John Cheney-Lippold and Megan Rim outline students' varying access to online learning, offering methods for structuring discussions of the persistent inequities the pandemic brings to the fore.

Cheney-Lippold is an associate professor of American Culture who teaches and writes on the relationship between digital media, identity, and the concept of privacy.

Rim is a PhD Candidate in American Culture who researches race, digital technologies, and surveillance and taught the Spring semester course “Life Under Surveillance in the Digital Age”

Register here to join via Zoom Videoconferencing: https://forms.gle/45XzAcPiirZ6WAf97

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 13 Jul 2020 13:58:12 -0400 2020-08-11T15:30:00-04:00 2020-08-11T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Workshop / Seminar august
Critical Conversations (October 14, 2020 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78424 78424-20042429@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 12:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Please join the English Department next Wednesday on Zoom for the second Critical Conversations event of the semester. We have a great lineup of panelists and a very timely issue on the table, and we hope to see many of you there!

Sigrid Anderson | Hui-hui Hu | Silvia Lindtner | M. Remi Yergeau (chair)

Please RSVP by the end of the day on Tuesday to receive the Zoom Link

Sigrid Anderson is the Librarian for English Language and Literature and a lecturer in American Culture. Her research focuses on race and gender in print culture and new media. She is the author of Fictions of Dissent: Reclaiming Authority in Transatlantic Women's Writing of the Late Nineteenth Century (2010), and her current book project focuses on women writers’ use of regional magazines as a space to intervene in racialized land settlement questions in turn of the twentieth-century Los Angeles.

Tung-Hui Hu is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Greenhouses, Lighthouses (2013), and a study of digital culture, A Prehistory of the Cloud (2015). He is a contributor to the upcoming BBC Radio 4 program "Under the Cloud" on October 13. A fellow of the American Academy in Berlin and the NEA, he is an associate professor of English at UM.

Silvia Lindtner (she/her) is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information and Associate Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC). Lindtner's research interests include cultures and politics of tech production, labor, industry, and governance. Lindtner draws from more than ten years of multi-sited ethnographic research, with a particular focus on China's shifting place in the political economy of tech innovation. Her book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020) demonstrates that the promise of entrepreneurial life influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation.

"Critical Conversations" is a monthly lunch series organized by the English Department Associate Chair’s Office. Each Critical Conversations session features panelists who will give flash talks about their current work as related to a broad theme.

Questions? Please contact Torre Puckett (puckettt@umich.edu), Sarah Jane Kerwin (sjkerwin@umich.edu), or Susan Scott Parrish (sparrish@umich.edu)

For more information and RSVP, visit the website: https://umcriticalconversations.wordpress.com/

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 12 Oct 2020 09:14:16 -0400 2020-10-14T12:30:00-04:00 2020-10-14T14:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion
TRACKING THE ‘MOOD’ OF U.S. MEDIA COVERAGE, 1990-2020 (November 23, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79451 79451-20327786@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 23, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Institute for Data Science

Abstract: Survey research has for many years tracking the ‘mood’ of the country. That measure has been useful for understanding trends in economic and political behavior. But where does ‘mood’ come from? And are there other ways to capture the mood of the country? This presentation explores the potential for a media-based measure of mood, explored both as a driver and reflection of pubic attitudes. Media mood is estimating using automated content analytic techniques on a very large corpus of full-text news content. Time series analysis is used to explore differences across news outlets, and the relationship between media content and public opinion from 1990 to the present.

Bio: Stuart Soroka is the Michael W. Traugott Collegiate Professor of Communication and Media & Political Science, and Research Professor in the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. His research focuses on political communication, the sources and/or structure of public preferences for policy, and the relationships between public policy, public opinion, and mass media.

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Presentation Tue, 17 Nov 2020 16:54:47 -0500 2020-11-23T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-23T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Institute for Data Science Presentation Stuart Soroka
The Digital Underground: Theory+Practice (January 28, 2021 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/80728 80728-20777544@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 28, 2021 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/98985906314.

You are invited to the new DSI’s research group, “The Digital Underground: Theory+Practice” (DIG-undr). "DIG-undr" is a project of the Tangent Lab, an open-ended research collective founded by Imani Cooper Mkandawire (DSI+Comparative Literature) and Irina Aristarkhova (DSI+Stamps School) to imagine and engender inclusive machines. Our group seeks to mine affinities and tensions between digital theory and various forms of practice (industry, art, design, activism), as well as the academy and its “outside” (the publics, the users, digital infrastructure).

The group will meet once a month in January, February, March and April 2021. This is an open research group and our first meeting will be on January 28, 2021, 2-4 pm on Zoom. At this first meeting we will discuss pressing research challenges related to theory+practice configurations, unique intellectual community around theory+practice collaborations at the DSI, and brainstorm a collective project. In Winter 2021, we are particularly interested in digital theory around AI, data science, machine learning, social robots, VR/AR and art, architecture, design and activism (democracy, racial justice, feminism, social change). Please see the poster attached herewith.

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Other Wed, 13 Jan 2021 16:36:56 -0500 2021-01-28T14:00:00-05:00 2021-01-28T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Other digitalug
Pathways to Publishing (Part II) (March 24, 2021 2:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/83043 83043-21259014@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 2:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Back by popular demand, DSI Postdoc Elisabetta Ferrari will present a reprised discussion of how to bring your Digital Studies work to publication. The conversation will include an overarching glimpse into the peer-reviewed journal publishing process and related topics, including article preparation and revision, journal research, working with editors, editorial timelines and guidelines, and more. Participants are encouraged to prepare questions in advance.

Elisabetta Ferrari is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan's Digital Studies Institute whose research addresses the social and political implications of digital technologies, with an emphasis on activism and social movements. Ferrari has published her research in academic journals such as New Media & Society, Media, Culture & Society and Communication, Culture & Critique.

Open to all in the university community. Please RSVP for the Zoom link and share with interested graduate students.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeTG1ZBZLo4RswSDDyV0C64ykex3CbY-KZi9e1K17AODnFuWQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:26:44 -0400 2021-03-24T14:30:00-04:00 2021-03-24T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Workshop / Seminar
Post-Binary Feminisms Working Group Launch (April 7, 2021 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/83477 83477-21385569@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Contact: Marisa Olson,
Executive Director umarisa@umich.edu

The Postbinary Feminisms Working Group is dedicated to exploring new theoretical writings and practices in the area of contemporary feminist thought, through the lens of technology-related issues.

The word “postbinary“ is, at the very least, a mnemonic device here, referring to both gender binaries and digital binary code. "Postbinary Feminisms" refers to the temporal moment after which the field has generally started to approach gender from a more fluid perspective; contemporaneous with a moment in which humanists have begun to reflect critically upon the ways in which the history of technology has been one in which women, people of color, people with disabilities, members of LGBTQ+ communities, the working classes, and others have been further marginalized by the cultural and infrastructural affects surrounding digital technology.

Postbinary Feminisms ought then be understood as not only intersectional, but also explicitly anti-racist; owing a legacy to those feminist thinkers who also worked to raise consciousness around racial binaries.

The Working Group will discuss new work by members of the field, across the disciplines; invite periodic guest lecturers; and hear from members of the University of Michigan community working on projects relevant to the group's focus.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/RobkmXJ9jLz6r9jS8
GMeet: https://meet.google.com/yhs-bmjp-tic

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Other Wed, 31 Mar 2021 15:50:58 -0400 2021-04-07T12:00:00-04:00 2021-04-07T13:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Other
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 8, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430617@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, April 8, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-08T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-08T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 9, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430618@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, April 9, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-09T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-09T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 10, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430619@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, April 10, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-10T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-10T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 11, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430620@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, April 11, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-11T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-11T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 12, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430621@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 12, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-12T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-12T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 13, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430622@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-13T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-13T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias - Free Film Screening (April 14, 2021 12:01am) https://events.umich.edu/event/83579 83579-21430623@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, April 14, 2021 12:01am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

The U-M Dissonance Event Series invites you to watch a free, on-demand screening of the documentary film Coded Bias. Watch Coded Bias on-demand anytime between Thursday, April 8, through Wednesday, April 14.

Visit the Dissonance events page to learn more, watch the trailer and receive the passcode you will need to access Coded Bias and watch the film for free.

https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Please also join us over Zoom on Thursday, April 15 at 4 p.m. EST for an "At the Movies" style panel discussion of the film Coded Bias. A panel of U-M experts will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society.

Links to the panel discussion can be found on the same event link above and on Happenings at Michigan on Thursday, April 15.

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

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Film Screening Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:58 -0400 2021-04-14T00:01:00-04:00 2021-04-14T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Film Screening Dissonance Event Series: Free Screening of the Film Coded Bias
Coded Bias "At the Movies" Panel Discussion (April 15, 2021 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/83580 83580-21430624@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, April 15, 2021 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information Assurance

Join a panel of U-M experts over Zoom for an "At the Movies" style discussion of the film Coded Bias. The panelists will exchange views on the challenges presented by technologies that reflect the systemic biases in American society. Panelists include:
- Nazanin Andalibi, assistant professor of information, School of Information; assistant professor of Digital Studies Institute, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA)
- Mingyan Liu, Peter and Evelyn Fuss Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
- Nicholson Price, professor of law, Law School
- Grace Trinidad (moderator), Ethics, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) postdoctoral fellow, School of Public Health

AVAILABLE PRIOR TO THE DISCUSSION
To be better informed prior to the Coded Bias panel discussion, be sure to take time to watch a free screening of the film between April 8 and April 14. More information is available at https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-free-movie-viewing

Access to Coded Bias and the panel discussion are brought to you by the Dissonance Event Series, ITS Information Assurance, the U-M School of Information, and the Law School’s Privacy and Technology Law Association.

Add the panel discussion to your Google Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit/copy/MWZjMnFtNmw0MzN2MDk0cmRyaHQ4b3VpMTggdW1pY2guZWR1X2ZkczI0Z2V2cGE0MnY5NTc2bG5wZTJjbWxrQGc

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:43:13 -0400 2021-04-15T16:00:00-04:00 2021-04-15T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information Assurance Lecture / Discussion Dissonance Event Series: Panel Discussion on the film Coded Bias
Digital Studies Research Meeting (April 16, 2021 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/82911 82911-21219287@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, April 16, 2021 11:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Li Cornfeld: The Digital Tech Expo

In January 2020, more than 170,000 people traveled from around the world to the Las Vegas Strip for CES, the global tech industry’s massive annual convention. In January 2021, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic pushed the event entirely online. Drawing on research conducted both on the ground at CES in the years prior to the pandemic as well as recent research of this year’s “all digital” event, this presentation asks what these dual modes of exhibition suggest about the role of liveness in tech demonstration. This research is in development as part of a book project, tentatively titled The Theater of Invention: Live Performance in the Tech Industry, which explores tech expos and conventions as ritual practices dedicated to legitimizing the industrial imagination of emerging technology.

Sarah Murray: Fashioning Intelligent Bodies: Mid-Century Smart Working Women and Wearability Before the Wearable

Quick, what do Winnie the Welder, Hildy Johnson, and Claire McCardell have in common? This mix of fictional and real figures represent some of the well-dressed women anchoring the U.S. workforce in the early 20th century. In a period shaped by wartime progress, deep nationalism, and technological development, the definition of a fashionable body changed to accommodate anxieties around white working women, class, and new industrial standards. It is not uncommon to trace the history of artificial intelligence to midcentury war efforts in code-breaking, cybernetics, military computing, and early machine learning. This talk offers a different prelude to ordinary A.I., one at the convergence of fashion, women, and work. What does smart mean before it becomes associated with machine intelligence and contemporary consumer tech? What was the idea of intelligence before ‘thinking machines’ were introduced to the public and became a preoccupation of science, industry, and government? The answers are threaded, quite literally, through the design of clothes for work. Widespread connotations associated smart with neat, efficient bodies connected to work outside the home, skill with new machinery, and sensible, store-bought styles. Long before the wearable, an emergent wearability established the properly outfitted worker as a safe site for the union of technology, gender, and labor and signaled a re-coordination of bodies to accommodate shifting meanings of intelligence.

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Presentation Mon, 15 Mar 2021 10:37:39 -0400 2021-04-16T11:00:00-04:00 2021-04-16T13:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Presentation
Daniel Greene: The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope (MIT Press) (April 21, 2021 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/83686 83686-21454207@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, April 21, 2021 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

TO PARTICIPATE, click here to register: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEldeqopz8sH90JlXeAIa8Bkqj5yQgDDnZ6

Abstract: Why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology? What makes us feel that we need to learn to code—or else? This common sense has ruled our economic imaginary for at least 30 years. Those who cannot log on or train up are condemned to the margins of the information economy, and contained by the carceral state.

In The Promise of Access, Daniel Greene argues that the problem of poverty became a problem of technology in order to manage the contradictions of a changing economy. We cannot debunk or banish the idea—what Greene calls the access doctrine—that the problem of poverty can be solved with the right tools and the right skills because the idea helps those public institutions that face poverty to save themselves. Technological solutions help public institutions simplify their complex missions and win legitimacy and funding, but at the cost of alienating the populations they serve.

Blending political-economic theory with years of ethnographic fieldwork, Greene explores how this plays out in Washington, DC, examining organizational change in technology startups, public libraries, and charter schools. Tracing the changes to the spirit and structure of these public institutions changes reveals a fight to define the good life under contemporary capitalism--and the alliances that could win that fight.

Speaker Bio: Daniel Greene is an Assistant Professor of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. His ethnographic, historical, and theoretical research explores how the future of work is built and who is included in that future. MIT Press is publishing his first book, The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope, in 2021. His research has also appeared in such venues as Research in the Sociology of Work, New Media & Society, and the International Journal of Communication. Daniel lives online at dmgreene.net.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 09 Apr 2021 13:51:25 -0400 2021-04-21T13:00:00-04:00 2021-04-21T14:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion image