Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. DISCO Network Lecture Series | Racial Replication: Michelle N. Huang in Conversation with Lisa Nakamura and Huan He (October 20, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97625 97625-21794842@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 20, 2022 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Asiatic interchangeability is made, not born. In her talk, Michelle N. Huang discusses how dystopian clone narratives challenge notions of individual racialized identity at both the genetic and generic levels. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s concept of racial fungibility, Huang will examine Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002) to trace how Asian American interchangeability is produced through reproductive control as well as an economy of character. In rearticulating, rather than rejecting, notions of shared subjectivity, hivemind, and fellow feeling, Asiatic clones ask for experimental alternatives to the ethnic bildungsroman and demonstrate the novel form itself to be a racialized technology of identity.

Michelle N. Huang is an Assistant Professor of English and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. She has research and teaching interests in contemporary Asian American literature, posthumanism, and feminist science studies. Her current project, Molecular Race, examines posthumanist aesthetics in post-1965 Asian American literature to trace racial representation and epistemology at nonhuman, minute scales. Molecular Race argues that a rapprochement with scientific discourse is necessary to fully grasp how the formal and aesthetic qualities of Asian American literature unsettle sedimented structures of racial formation.

Michelle’s work appears in American Literature, Contemporary Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, Journal of Asian American Studies, Amerasia, and Post 45: Contemporaries, among other venues. Her film essay, INHUMAN FIGURES: Robots, Clones, and Aliens can be viewed online at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center website.

Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor of American Culture and Digital Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of several books on race, gender, and the Internet. She is the founding Director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan and the Lead P.I. for the DISCO (Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration and Optimism) Network (disconetwork.org).

Huan He is a Curriculum Development Fellow at the DISCO Network Michigan Hub and holds a PhD in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California. Most broadly, his research engages Asian/American literature and culture, histories of media and technology, visual culture, digital game studies, and poetics. His book project, currently titled, “The Racial Interface,” explores the racial associations linking Asian/Americans and information technology in the digital era. Drawing from literature, art, and archival sources, this project reveals how myths of racial and technological progress converge in the shadow of U.S. liberal capitalism. He foregrounds minoritarian writers and artists who challenge the dominant technological imaginaries shaping the digital present. He is also interested in the relationship between race, gaming, cheating, and scams and pursuing a second project on these topics. His scholarly writing has been published in College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies and Media-N and is forthcoming in an anthology on Asian/American game studies. In Fall 2023, he will start as an Assistant Professor of English (Asian American and Asian Diasporic Literature) at Vanderbilt University.

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/3CcvgFL

Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus: https://bit.ly/3R2S3bG

We will have automated captions. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate, please contact the DISCO Network at disconetwork@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 29 Aug 2022 14:31:47 -0400 2022-10-20T16:00:00-04:00 2022-10-20T17:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion A purple background with a black disco ball. White retro lettering reads, "DISCO Network Lecture Series. Michelle N. Huang in Conversation with Lisa Nakamura and Huan He. Thursday, October 20, 2022. 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm ET." Below that are six white stars surrounded by a black border. Below that are 3 circular headshots of the speakers. Michelle N. Huang has shoulder length brown hair and is wearing a white shirt, a thin tie tied into a bow, and a black blazer. She is standing in front of a bookcase with books of varying sizes, shapes, and colors. Lisa Nakamura has short reddish hair and is wearing a blue-grey top. Her background is a blurred image of trees. Huan He has short black hair. He is wearing a black shirt with a gold necklace. He is in front of a dark grey background. Below that is a black text box with white words that read, "This event will be presented in a hybrid format. In person attendance is limited. Attendees will be registered for in person attendance on a first come first served basis."
STS Speaker. Compass to Sentinel: The Automation of Self-tracking Technology (November 7, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/98226 98226-21795744@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 7, 2022 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Science, Technology & Society

This talk draws on ethnographic fieldwork to argue that a shift is underway in the logic of behavioral guidance informing the design and use of so-called self-tracking technology, or apps, and wearable devices that sense, record, and analyze users’ data. While first-wave self-tracking technologies were designed to serve as digital compasses that could provide attentive selves with information to help them navigate the choice-filled seas of modern life, newer technologies are designed to serve as sentinels that can stand watch for distracted and overwhelmed selves, providing just-in-time micronudges to keep them on track.

Co-sponsored by Center for Ethics, Society and Computing, Communication and Media Studies, American Culture, Digital Studies Institute.

Bio: Natasha Dow Schüll is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor in the department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. She is the author of Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas (2012), an ethnographic exploration of the relationship between technology design and the experience of addiction. Her current book project, Keeping Track (forthcoming), concerns the rise of digital self-tracking technologies and the new modes of introspection and self-governance they engender. She has published numerous articles on the theme of digital media and subjectivity, and her research has been featured in such national media venues as 60 Minutes, The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 18 Oct 2022 13:28:33 -0400 2022-11-07T16:00:00-05:00 2022-11-07T17:30:00-05:00 Tisch Hall Science, Technology & Society Lecture / Discussion 2015 Wearables
DISCO Network Lecture Series | Algorithmic Ableism at the Intersections: Disability, Race, Gender, and New Technologies (February 7, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102935 102935-21805581@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 7, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Lydia X. Z. Brown's work focuses on unearthing, examining, and challenging the intersectional harms of algorithmic technologies on disabled people living at the margins of the margins. From algorithmic worker management, credit decisions, threat assessment, health predictions, decision-making technologies, and surveillance apparatuses, algorithmic and automated technologies increasingly have an outsized impact on disabled people, particularly disabled people from multiply-marginalized communities. Lydia's work calls attention to the particular ways in which algorithmic technologies serve to exclude disabled people from public participation and social integration, exacerbate existing hyper-surveillance of and attendant harms to disabled people, and manufacture new means of regulating disabled people's lives.

Lydia X. Z. Brown is an advocate, organizer, attorney, strategist, and writer whose work focuses on interpersonal and state violence against disabled people at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. Lydia is Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where their work focuses on algorithmic harm and disability discrimination. Lydia is also an adjunct lecturer in the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the Disability Studies Program at Georgetown University, as well as an adjunct professorial lecturer in American Studies in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University. They are co-president of the Disability Rights Bar Association and Disability Justice Committee representative on the National Lawyers Guild board.

M. Remi Yergeau is the Arthur F. Thurnau Associate Professor of Digital Studies and English at the University of Michigan. They direct the Digital Accessible Futures Lab as a part of the DISCO Network, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation. Their scholarly interests include rhetoric & writing studies, digital studies, queer rhetorics, disability studies, and theories of mind. Their Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness (Duke UP), 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. They are currently at work on a second book project on disability, techno-rhetorics, and sociality, tentatively titled Crip Data.

David Adelman is a DISCO Network Postdoctoral Research Rellow at the Digital Accessible Futures Lab at the University of Michigan. His research interests center on disability and crip studies, with a particular emphasis on disability media studies, digital disability cultures, disability film studies, and critical sexuality studies. Through an interdisciplinary crip studies/feminist lens, he pursues questions which emerge at the intersection of power, culture, technology, identity, and desire.

We want to make our events accessible to all participants. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3jUrnOE

CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate, please email the DISCO Network at disconetwork@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 11 Jan 2023 09:46:55 -0500 2023-02-07T16:00:00-05:00 2023-02-07T17:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion Flyer with headshots of speakers
Privacy@Michigan: Child Safety in the Smart Home (February 8, 2023 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/104342 104342-21808844@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 8, 2023 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information and Technology Services (ITS)

The adoption of home devices connected to the internet is growing and so are concerns about child physical and digital safety and privacy in the smart home. The U-M community is invited to join us on Zoom for a presentation and Q&A with Kaiwen Sun, U-M School of Information Ph.D. student, as she explores the discrepancies between marketing depictions and device features, and discusses considerations for keeping children safe in the smart home.

Kaiwen Sun’s research focuses on the intersection of children’s privacy and safety and understanding parents’ perceptions and behaviors around privacy and safety in the context of smart home technologies.

This event is open to the U-M community (umich login required) and will be especially relevant to parents, grandparents, guardians, and others who interact with children in their homes.

Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/99704278354?pwd=ejJzL2NDNDhPVHkwM3pobHUxVXREdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 08 Feb 2023 10:08:51 -0500 2023-02-08T12:00:00-05:00 2023-02-08T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Information and Technology Services (ITS) Livestream / Virtual Privacy at Michigan - Child Safety in the Smart Home Presentation and Q and A
DSI Lecture Series | The Black Menaces: Social Media, Race, and Activism on College Campuses (February 8, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/103456 103456-21807229@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 8, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

The Black Menaces are a coalition of students from various universities across the nation fighting to empower marginalized communities through social media.

Through social media platforms like Tik Tok, Instagram, and Twitter they highlight how PWIs (Predominantly White Institutions) do not create safe spaces for marginalized students. The Black Menaces highlight overt and covert racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more through questions. They share the stories and experiences of any and all marginalized students.

As the Black Menaces, they seek to make all necessary changes at universities across the nation to ensure the mental, emotional, and physical safety of all students. Through reforming the curriculum, systems, and management change will occur to make equitable standards.

Join the Digital Studies Institute for a panel conversation with the Black Menaces leadership team Nate Byrd, Kennethia Dorsey, Kylee Shepherd, Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, Rachel Weaver with Professor Apryl Williams to learn about the creation of the Black Menaces movement and to discuss the use of social media as a tool for activism on college campuses.

Learn more about the Black Menaces at www.theblackmenaces.org.

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: http://bit.ly/3k8yDXd

Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus: https://myumi.ch/96Dgx

CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate, please email the Digital Studies Institute 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.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 07 Feb 2023 12:18:28 -0500 2023-02-08T16:00:00-05:00 2023-02-08T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion Black Menaces flier, featuring members of the student coalition
DISCO Network Lecture Series | Digital Keywords with the DISCO Network Fellows (February 23, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/103083 103083-21806080@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 23, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Digital Studies Institute

Join four of our DISCO Network Fellows for short talks on the future of race, gender, disability, and technology with David Adelman (U-Michigan) on “desire”, Aaron Dial (Purdue University) on “algo (rhy) thm”, Lida Zeitlin-Wu (U-Michigan) on “color”, and Coleman Collins (Stonybrook University) on “debt”.

David Adelman is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Digital Accessible Futures Lab at the University of Michigan. His research interests center on disability and crip studies, with a particular emphasis on disability media studies, digital disability cultures, disability film studies, and critical sexuality studies. Through an interdisciplinary crip studies/feminist lens, he pursues questions that emerge at the intersection of power, culture, technology, identity, and desire.

Aaron Dial earned his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM) program where his expertise is in materialist and digital media studies, digital humanities, Black studies, and cultural studies of technology and race. These areas of expertise inform his research and teaching interests, which, broadly sketched, are affective labor, popular culture, urban spaces and temporal flows, and the nexus between sports and science and technology. He currently is a postdoctoral research fellow at The Humanities and Technoscience Lab at Purdue University.

Lida Zeitlin-Wu is a scholar of screen-based media and visual culture whose research focuses on the commodification and quantification of sensory experience under global techno-capitalism. Her current book project, “Seeing by Numbers,” traces how color systems—diagrams and models that attempt to encompass the full range of human color vision—came to play a key role in engineering perception over the course of the 20th century. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan focusing on DISCO’s curriculum goals.

Coleman Collins is an interdisciplinary artist and writer who explores the ways that small, iterative processes can have outsized effects over time. His work often identifies technological developments and relationships of debt and obligation as the modes through which these processes are enacted. He lives in New York, where he is currently serving as the inaugural DISCO Network Artist-in-Residence at Stony Brook University’s Future Histories Studio.

CART will be provided. To attend virtually, please register at the following link:https://bit.ly/3imtMBp

If you have any questions or need to request accommodations, please email Eric Mancini, the DSI Operations Coordinator at dsi-administration@umich.edu.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:39:40 -0500 2023-02-23T16:00:00-05:00 2023-02-23T17:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Digital Studies Institute Lecture / Discussion Images of each of the four speakers
TikTok, Boom - Conversation with Director, Shalini Kantayya and U-M Panel (March 16, 2023 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/104991 104991-21810544@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 16, 2023 11:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Information and Technology Services (ITS)

Join the Dissonance Event Series and participate in a discussion with the director of TikTok Boom, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Shalini Kantayya, along with a panel of U-M faculty and students. TikTok, Boom examines the algorithmic, socio-political, economic, and cultural influences and impacts of TikTok and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

The film will be available to view on PBS: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/tiktok-boom/

TikTok, Boom Events Page: https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/TikTokBoom

Register to attend the March 16 virtual discussion: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_a7DS9uIcQdKpkVCdqDJNRQ

Add the event to your Google Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit/copy/NHFwNGRjODBuam5qOXNrNGZhdm84OGwyazkgdW1pY2guZWR1X2ZkczI0Z2V2cGE0MnY5NTc2bG5wZTJjbWxrQGc

ABOUT THE FILM
Dissecting one of the most influential platforms of the contemporary social media landscape, TikTok Boom examines the algorithmic, socio-political, economic, and cultural influences and impact of the history-making app. This rigorous exploration balances a genuine interest in the TikTok community and its innovative mechanics with a healthy skepticism around the security issues, global political challenges, and racial biases behind the platform. A cast of Gen Z subjects, helmed by influencer Feroza Aziz, remains at its center, making this one of the most needed and empathetic films exploring what it means to be a digital native.

DIRECTOR & PRODUCER: SHALINI KANTAYYA
Emmy-nominated filmmaker Shalini Kantayya directs fiction and nonfiction films that artfully marry the future of science with the future of story. Her latest film, TikTok, Boom, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was official selection at SXSW. Her critically-acclaimed 2020 Sundance film, Coded Bias, was broadcast nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens and globally on Netflix in April 2021. The film has been nominated for a Critics’ Choice, and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary. The film won Best Director at the Social Impact Media Awards, and the Visionary Filmmaker Award at GlobeDocs. Shalini’s debut feature, Catching the Sun, released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016 with Executive Producer Leonardo DiCaprio and was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick.

Shalini directed for National Geographic television series Breakthrough ), Executive Produced by Ron Howard, and episodes for NOVA and YouTube Originals. She is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fulbright Scholar, and Concordia Studios Artist Fellow. She is an Associate of the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.

LINKS & RESOURCES
- Shalini Kantayya website: https://www.shalinikantayya.net/about
- National Geographic television series Breakthrough: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/
- TED Fellow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVzNNZ6w-ls)
- Coded Bias - Dissonance Panel Discussion - April 15, 2021: https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/dissonance/coded-bias-panel-discussion
- Women Make Movies: https://www.wmm.com

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 09 Mar 2023 13:54:26 -0500 2023-03-16T11:00:00-04:00 2023-03-16T12:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Information and Technology Services (ITS) Lecture / Discussion TikTok, Boom logo on black background with Sundance festival 2022 selection logo