November 2018 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

"Society Is Being Programmed By A Black Box"
by Hasan Azad 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Dear all, I highly recommend the Youtube channel Truthstream Media where this video is from. The husband and wife team regularly produce incredibly insightful mini-documentaries and commentaries: "It Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself. Where do we go from here? Data has become the tail that wags the dog; and we are pets, not free individuals in this configuration. And things are growing Darker." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmIPK7DQh8 Regards, Hasan -- Hasan Azad, PhD Dept. of Religion Columbia University NY, 10027 Red and Green Oil on Water - A Novel: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Green-Water-Hasan-Azad-ebook/dp/B01IZMTHEY/ref=s… Ta'seel Commons: http://www.taseelcommons.com/ Academia.edu: https://columbia.academia.edu/HasanAzad Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/has-an-apple co-founder: Yoga Makes Art: https://yogaandwriting.wordpress.com/2016/02/

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Call for Workshop Proposals: IEEE SMARTCOMP-2019, Washington D.C.
by Hemant Purohit 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

[Apologies for multiple copies] --- IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SMART COMPUTING (SMARTCOMP 2019) Washington D.C., (US) 12-15 June 2019 http://www.smart-comp.org Call for workshop proposals ------------------------------- Continuing the well-established tradition of this series of symposia, SMARTCOMP 2019 will provide an international technical forum for experts from industry and academia to exchange ideas and present results of on-going research in most state-of-the-art areas of computers and communications. This year, special focus will be on the challenging issues related to all the opportunities of computing, sensing and communication in the era of the integration of Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Big Data. The Workshops Committee of SMARTCOMP 2019 invites proposals for half or full day workshops affiliated with the conference, on topics of interest to SMARTCOMP 2019 attendees. The purpose of these workshops is to create new opportunities for presenting novel ideas in a less formal and possibly more sharply focused way than at the conference itself. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, Internet of Things, Software-Defined Networking, Big Data, Cloud Computing, M2M communications and Smart Grid. Papers presented in the SMARTCOMP 2019 workshops will be included in the conference proceedings and submitted for publication in IEEE Xplore®. Submission Guidelines ------------------------------- Each workshop proposal must include the following: * the name of the workshop; * the names, addresses, and short bios of the organizers; * a brief description (up to one page long) of the technical issues that the workshop’s focus will be on, and the reasons why the workshop is of interest at this time; * the names of potential Program Committee members; * the planned format of the workshop, including a strategy to facilitate lively discussions and involvement of the attendees; * if a keynote speech is included in the planned format of the workshop, the name(s) of the potential keynote speaker(s); * if applicable, a description of past versions of the workshop, including dates, organizers, number of submitted and accepted papers, and number of attendees; * if the workshop is going to be organized for the first time, an estimate of the expected number of submissions and attendees; * a tentative Call for Papers (as complete as possible); a description of the plans for publicity and Workshop Web site. Submission Method ------------------------------- Workshop proposals should be submitted, no later than 23 November 2018, in PDF format by email with the subject line "SMARTCOMP 2019 Workshop Proposal" to the Workshop Chairs: Dario Bruneo (dbruneo(a)unime.it) Christine Julien (c.julien(a)mail.utexas.edu) Important Dates ------------------------------- Proposal for workshop submission deadline: 23 November 2018 Notification of workshop acceptance: 15 December 2018 Paper submission deadline: 28 February 2019 Notification of paper acceptance: 30 March 2019 Submission of camera-ready deadline: 21 April 2019 SMARTCOMP 2019 Workshop Chair Dario Bruneo, University of Messina, Italy Christine Julien, University of Texas at Austin, USA ========= -- Hemant Purohit, Ph.D. Asst. Professor of Information Sci. & Tech., George Mason University Office: 5348 Nguyen Engineering Building | http://ist.gmu.edu/~hpurohit<http://ist.gmu.edu/~hpurohit/> ________________________________

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New Issue of CyberOrient
by Vit Sisler 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Dear colleagues, it is my pleasure to announce that a new issue of the CyberOrient journal is available online! All the best, Vit Sisler Managing Editor CyberOrient, Vol. 13, Iss. 1, 2018 Editor-in-Chief: Daniel M. Varisco Managing Editor: Vit Sisler http://www.cyberorient.net/ Articles “The Best Damn Representation of Islam:” Muslims, Gender, Social Media, and Islamophobia in the United States Stine Eckert, Sydney O’Shay Wallace, Jade Metzger-Riftkin, Sean Kolhoff http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=9907 Cultural Adoption Through Online Practices Across Social Media Platforms: The Case of Saudi Women Ghayda Aljuwaiser http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=9899 Echoes of Populism and Terrorism in Libya’s Online News Reporting Letizia Lombezzi http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=9912 Comments American-Muslims’ E-Jihad: Trumping Islamophobia in the Trump Era Sahar Khamis http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=9923 About CyberOrient CyberOrient (http://www.cyberorient.net/) is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Anthropological Association, in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. The aim of the journal is to provide research and theoretical considerations on the representation of Islam and the Middle East, the very areas that used to be styled as an “Orient”, in cyberspace, as well as the impact of the internet and new media in Muslim and Middle Eastern contexts. -- Vit Sisler, Ph.D. Charles University Faculty of Arts Institute of Information Science and Librarianship New Media Studies http://uisk.jinonice.cuni.cz/sisler/

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ICA Preconference Workshop - Government and Corporate Policies for Social Media
by Richard Denny Taylor 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Colleagues, I am pleased to share with you the following announcement. Apologies for multiple postings. Richard Taylor INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION (ICA) 2019 Washington, DC PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOP May 24, 2019 Taming and Nurturing the Wild Child: Government and Corporate Policies for Social Media Call for Papers The impact social media have had on social networking, political information, advertising and corporate communications make it hard to imagine that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are less than a decade and a half old. In this short time frame, they have proven their potential time and again both for good and bad: while catalyzing pro-democracy movements worldwide, and promoting activism against sexual harassment, they have also become pre-eminent forums for the dissemination of misinformation and "fake news," and for racist, xenophobic and misogynistic propaganda. While connecting people through building (and buttressing) social, business and political networks, they have also raised concerns regarding privacy and misuse of personal information. Due to this explosive growth and the ensuing concerns, societies are struggling to fashion policy responses that will preserve social media's vibrancy as spaces for unencumbered speech, while minimizing the potential harms from privacy violations, hate speech and the diffusion of misinformation into political discourse. Indeed, in some countries governments and civil society organizations have called for steps to address these abuses, yet in others, social media policy has become a pretext for governments to curb freedom of expression and muzzle critical voices. We invite papers that examine policy responses to these developments. How can policy be developed, while protecting societal values such as freedom of speech and information? Policy is defined broadly, including government policies, regulations and laws and the policies of corporations including algorithmic screening of content and emergent norms (in the spirit of North/Williamson, who define governance as formal and non-formal rules of the game). We are also interested in analyses that address how the business model of social media (e.g., for profit, not-for-profit) interacts with alternative policy approaches. We particularly encourage international comparisons, including contrasting approaches to social media policy adopted by national governments. For example, what impact do the EU's GDPR and the Chinese 2016 Cybersecurity Law, both which came into effect in 2018, have on social media? Potential papers may address the impact of these policies on issues including but not limited to freedom of speech, democratic discourse, political activism, network security, national security and surveillance, commercial speech, privacy protections and transborder data flows. This preconference workshop is jointly organized by the Institute for Information Policy (IIP) at Penn State University and the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center at Michigan State University. Papers presented in the workshop will be considered for publication in the IIP's Journal of Information Policy. The Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, published by Penn State University Press and archived on JSTOR. Abstracts of up to 500 words and a short bio of the author(s) should be submitted to pennstateiip(a)psu.edu by December 15, 2018. Please write IIP_SOCIALMEDIAPOLICY: YOUR NAME in the subject line. Presenters will be notified by January 12, 2019 regarding acceptance. Accepted papers will need to be submitted by May 1, 2019.

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PhD Program in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) at NC State University
by Nicholas Taylor 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Dear colleagues, The Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM) program at North Carolina State University is inviting applications for admission to our Fall 2019 cohort. As one of few truly interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs in North America, CRDM prepares doctoral students to analyze the social, cultural, and political dimensions of emerging communication media, communication technologies and infrastructures, and digital texts, and to actively engage students in the study of digital media through inquiry, criticism, production, and practice. Recent CRDM graduates have gained positions at a wide variety of institutions nationally and worldwide, including places such as City University of Hong Kong, George Mason University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Molloy College, the University of Central Florida, DePaul University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, Elon University, and Murray State University. We invite you to circulate this call to any Master's students and/or Master's programs you think might be interested. Applications are due Monday, January 14, 2019. If you have an questions about the program, please check out our website <https://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/> or send inquiries to crdm-inquiries(a)ncsu.edu. Thanks all! -- Dr. Nicholas Taylor Assistant Professor of Digital Media Department of Communication North Carolina State University Co-director, CIRCUIT Studio <http://circuit.chass.ncsu.edu/> nickttaylor.net

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New book announcement: Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed
by Fenwick Mckelvey 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

With apologies for cross-posting. Hi all, I am really happy to announce my new book Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed published by University of Minnesota Press. I've copied details below, but the book will be of interest to those concerned with the politics of infrastructure, algorithmic/AI accountability, piracy and as well as network neutrality and its history. Also, it includes a sweet drawing of Oliver Selfridge's Pandemonium architecture by Eisner-nominated illustrator John Martz (seriously the world need a better drawing and soon to be shared under a CC license). I was really excited to hear all the discussion of these matters at more at the last AOIR so I'm hoping the book inspires more discussion. You can learn more about the book at: http://www.internetdaemons.com/ (check out the playlist) Thanks to the awesomeness of UMP, the book is open access at: https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/internet-daemons Thanks again. Best, Fen *Internet Daemons * A complete history and theory of internet daemons brings these little-known—but very consequential—programs into the spotlight. *About Internet Daemons * We’re used to talking about how tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon rule the internet, but what about daemons? Ubiquitous programs that have colonized the Net’s infrastructure—as well as the devices we use to access it—daemons are little known. Fenwick McKelvey weaves together history, theory, and policy to give a full account of where daemons come from and how they influence our lives—including their role in hot-button issues like network neutrality. Going back to Victorian times and the popular thought experiment Maxwell’s Demon, McKelvey charts how daemons evolved from concept to reality, eventually blossoming into the pandaemonium of code-based creatures that today orchestrates our internet. Digging into real-life examples like sluggish connection speeds, Comcast’s efforts to control peer-to-peer networking, and Pirate Bay’s attempts to elude daemonic control (and skirt copyright), McKelvey shows how daemons have been central to the internet, greatly influencing everyday users. Internet Daemons asks important questions about how much control is being handed over to these automated, autonomous programs, and the consequences for transparency and oversight. *Endorsements * Beneath social media, beneath search, Internet Daemons reveals another layer of algorithms: deeper, burrowed into information networks. Fenwick McKelvey is the best kind of intellectual spelunker, taking us deep into the infrastructure and shining his light on these obscure but vital mechanisms. What he has delivered is a precise and provocative rethinking of how to conceive of power in and among networks." —Tarleton Gillespie, author of Custodians of the Internet "Internet Daemons is an original and important contribution to the field of digital media studies. Fenwick McKelvey extensively maps and analyzes how daemons influence data exchanges across Internet infrastructures. This study insightfully demonstrates how daemons are transformative entities that enable particular ways of transferring information and connecting up communication, with significant social and political consequences." —Jennifer Gabrys, author of Program Earth

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videovortex xii, malta, september 27-28, 2019
by Geert Lovink 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

first announcement: videovortex xii, malta, september 27-28, 2019. soon more on www.networkcultures.org/videovortex <http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex>. possible topics: - drone aesthetics - videocultures on the social media platforms: instagram, snapchat - online aesthetics in the age of 5g and mobile 4k - streaming video & streaming platforms - automated filmmaking, algorithmic filmmaking, bots, online video & archives - videofication of the web - selfies -> animation -> videos - aerial imagery (drones / satellites) - wiki loves monuments - artificial intelligence (ai) prediction of moving image - locative media with beacons - look at the film industry in relation to the politics of video vortex - heritage & immersive spaces - digital preservation (archives / curating) - involve malta film commission, see: https://maltafilmcommission.com/ <https://maltafilmcommission.com/> - involve heritage malta, see: http://heritagemalta.org/ <http://heritagemalta.org/> - currently working on the inquisitor's palace augmented reality project, see: http://heritagemalta.org/museums-sites/the-inquisitors-palace/ <http://heritagemalta.org/museums-sites/the-inquisitors-palace/> - working on wonders of the world as a google card board tour, see also: https://vr.google.com/tourcreator/ <https://vr.google.com/tourcreator/> there will be a seperate exhibition (from early september to late october 2019, exact dates tba), curated in partnership between spazju kreattiv and video vortex, to be held in the gallery spaces of spazju kreattiv (https://www.kreattivita.org <https://www.kreattivita.org/>), particularly to enable malta-based participants to engage significantly with the conference delegates' work before and after the conference. if you want to get involved, contribute to the conference, exhibition or screening program, please send a proposal to adman hadzi we aim at putting together a conference comittee towards the end of the year. provisional program committee: adnan hadzi (department of digital arts, university of malta) toni sant (spazju kreattiv, malta) andreas treske (department of communication and design, İ.d. bilkent university, ankara) geert lovink (institute of network cultures, amsterdam) all the best, geert, andreas, toni, adnan — background of videovortex videovortex is a network of video makers, geeks, activists, artists and research that work on the politics and aesthetics of online vode. it was established in 2007 by the institute of network cultures in amsterdam. video technology has radically altered the way in which we produce, consume and circulate images, influencing the aesthetics and possibilities of moving image cultures, as well as yielding a rich body of scholarship across various disciplines. given its ease of access and use, video has historically been aligned with media activism and collaborative work. video is driving social media and the web. it is dominating the internet of things. cameras causing breakdowns in networks. online video became lifelike. rapidly changing technological formats implicate the urgent need to engage with practices of archiving and curation, modes of collaboration & political mobilisation, as well as fresh comprehensions of the subject-spectator, actors & networks constituted by contemporary video and digital cultures. we are interested in the sharing of propositions, research, speculations, video and film work that responds to current debates in film, video, media, networks, and game theory, while being particularly attentive to the implications that technologies of live video, virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence have for the future of video & media cultures. films & curated screening programmes: filmmakers and video artists are invited to submit work that addresses the themes and concepts outlined here. curators are invited to propose short screening programmes of up to 3 hours that showcase video/film in response to the themes outlined. workshop proposals: we invite video practitioners, artists, researchers, scientists, content producers and theorists to submit proposals for workshops that explore critical making as a mode of critique and inquiry. we are particularly interested in hearing from those working with virtual or augmented reality. if you are proposing a workshop, please indicate costs for materials, as these will have to be built in separately as registration fees. all workshop organisers will have to make their own arrangements for materials required. panel discussions: we seek proposals for 2.00 hr panels and round tables including a maximum of three papers of 30 mins each, along with a chair, who may also present a paper. individual papers & lecture-performances: we welcome suggestions for individual paper presentations addressing any of the topics outlined in the call, as well as proposals for lecture-performances that play with the standard academic form of presentation. previous events: videovortex #1: brussels, belgium, october 2007 videovortex #2: amsterdam, the netherlands, january 2008 videovortex #3: ankara, turkey, october 2008 videovortex #4: split, croatia, october 2009 videovortex #5: brussels, belgium, november 2009 videovortex #6: amsterdam, the netherlands, march 2011 videovortex #7: yogyakarta, indonesia, july 2011 videovortex #8: zagreb, croatia, may 2012 videovortex #9: lüneburg, germany, february 2013 videovortex #10: istanbul, turkey, september 2014 videovortex #11: kochi, india, february 2017

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British Academy Global Professorship at CAMRI
by Christian Fuchs 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/british-academy-glo… The Communication and Media Resarch Institute (CAMRI, http://www.camri.ac.uk) and the University of Westminster are keen to consider eligible applications from outstanding international researchers not currently working in the United Kingdom, to bring their research experience to the UK and to advance our research goals through a Professorship with the University. The University of Westminster has a proud tradition of global collaboration. We are ranked in the top 30 in the world for ‘International Outlook’ (Times Higher Education Young University Ranking, 2017 and 2018), and are committed to engaging with world-class, internationally recognised scholars. The British Academy Global Professorships are four-year appointments expected to involve a specific research focus and represent a complete project. To apply, eligible applicants for this scheme must first submit an Expression of Interest to the University, available below, describing their research proposal and why they have selected the University of Westminster as their host institution. Successful candidates will be supported by Westminster through the British Academy application process. Applications will be considered on the basis of research excellence: the scholarly importance of the project; the feasibility of the proposed research programme, especially the proposed methodology and timescale; and the match with our own research goals and strategy. Successful candidates will need to demonstrate in their CV a clear research trajectory and international standing in their field. All applicants will need to identify a University of Westminster supporter prior to submitting their application. You should discuss your application with your supporter. We will not be able to consider an application submitted without a supporter. Before writing an application, we recommend that you check the British Academy Global Professorship Guidance Notes and FAQs, which you can download below, for guidance on how the British Academy reviews and evaluates Professorship applications. Please note: that guidance documents for 2018/19 have not yet been published, and the links provided are to information for a previous round. Applicants should check the British Academy site for this year’s guidance which will be published closer to the scheme launch date. Interested candidates should please first contact CAMRI directors Christian Fuchs and Anastasia Kavada - c.fuchs(a)westminster.ac.uk, A.Kavada(a)westminster.ac.uk -- Prof. Christian Fuchs University of Westminster, Co-Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute http://www.camri.ac.uk @fuchschristian c.fuchs(a)westminster.ac.uk +44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380

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Announcing a journal special issue on "Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies"
by Emil Lundedal Hammar 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Dear All, We are happy to formally announce the launch of our journal special issue '<https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/special/postcolonial-perspectives-i…>Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies'<https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/special/postcolonial-perspectives-i…> in the Open Library of Humanities, 4(2). Some of the articles have already been available online as per the OLH policy. All articles are open-access and are available free of cost under the OLH Creative Commons licence<https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.216/>. The special issue was planned specifically to be made accessible to readers all over the world, especially those in third-world countries who are without access to pay-walled journals. Postcolonial Studies has only recently started receiving its deserved videogames research and this special issue is a response to the versatility of the recent scholarship on the topic. Our introductory article explains the rationale behind the journal in detail: Mukherjee, S. and Hammar, E.L., 2018. Introduction to the Special Issue on Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies. Open Library of Humanities, 4(2), p.33. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.309. The full table of contents with links to each article is attached below. The special issue features contributions by eminent researchers in the area on the debate(s) relating to (post)coloniality, orientalism, empire and other related topics forward in future. We will be immensely grateful to have your feedback and suggestions for any future iteration of the special issue that we might plan. We also request you to circulate the link to the journal among your friends, colleagues and anyone who might be interested in the articles. You could use the following links to share this on social media such as Twitter<http://twitter.com/home?status=Just%20published%20my%20latest%20%23openacce…> and Facebook.<http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.309> We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all contributors, reviewers and the editorial team of OLH and we hope that you will enjoy this collection as much as we did in putting it together. Thanks and regards, Emil and Souvik Dr Souvik Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Presidency University, Kolkata, India E: souvik.eng(a)presiuniv.ac.in<mailto:souvik.eng@presiuniv.ac.in> Videogames and Postcolonialism: The Empire Plays Back<https://www.palgrave.com/in/book/9783319548210> (Palgrave Macmillan 2017) Emil Lundedal Hammar, PhD Candidate, Department of Culture & Language, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education,UiT the Arctic University of Norway, 9037 Tromsø. E: emil.hammar(a)uit.no<mailto:emil.hammar@uit.no> ----------- Full list of articles for the special issue 'Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies' for the Open Library of Humanities * 'Introduction to the Special Issue on Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies' by Souvik Mukherjee & Emil Lundedal Hammar https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.309/ * 'The Work of Postcolonial Game Studies in the Play of Culture' by Soraya Murray https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.285/ * 'Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis' by Sabine Harrer https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.210/ * 'Decolonising the Games Curriculum: Interventions in an Introductory Game Design Course' by Hanli Geyser https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.217/ * 'Hybridity, Reflexivity and Mapping: A Collaborative Ethnography of Postcolonial Gameplay' by Sybille Lammes & Stephanie de Smale https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.290/ * 'Counterfactual Communities: Strategy Games, Paratexts and the Player's Experience of History' by Tom Apperley https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.286/ * 'Who Made Your Phone? Compassion and the Voice of the Oppressed in Phone Story and Burn the Boards' by Víctor Navarro-Remesal & Beatriz Pérez Zapata https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.209/ * 'Settler Colonialism in the Digital Age: Clash of Clans, Territoriality, and the Erasure of the Native' by Jacob Euteneuer https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.212/ * 'Geralt of Poland: The Witcher 3 Between Epistemic Disobedience and Imperial Nostalgia' by Tomasz Z. Majkowski https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.216/ * 'CosmoCult Card Game: A Methodological Tool to Understand the Hybrid and Peripheral Cultural Consumption of Young People' by Wilson Roberto Bekesas, Mauro Berimbau, Renato Vercesi Mader, Joana Angelica Pellerano, Viviane Riegel https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.167/ * 'Facing Fanon: Examining Neocolonial Aspects in Grand Theft Auto V through the Prism of the Machinima Film Finding Fanon II' by Steffen Krüger https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.177/ * 'Representations of Colonialism in Three Popular, Modern Board Games: Puerto Rico, Struggle of Empires, and Archipelago' by Cornel Borit, Melania Borit, Petter Olsen https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.211/

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CFP: Infrastructural Politics - Deadline 15 November
by Blake Hallinan 09 Nov '18

09 Nov '18

Hello again! The deadline for proposals (500 word abstracts) for the special issue of *Cultural Studies* on "Infrastructural Politics" is 15 November 2018. The full call is available below. Please do not hestitate to reach out with any questions. Best, Blake Hallinan & James Gilmore Special Issue of *Cultural Studies *on Infrastructural Politics Issue Editors: Blake Hallinan Ph.D. Candidate Department of Communication University of Colorado Boulder James N. Gilmore Assistant Professor Department of Communication Clemson University John Durham Peters’ 2015 book *The Marvelous Clouds* develops the concept *infrastructuralism *to describe a fascination “for the basic, the boring, the mundane, and all the mischievous work done behind the scenes” that contributes to a sense of the unremarkable (p. 34). Classic studies explored electric power (Hughes, 1988) and transportation systems (Innis, 1950), while more recent academic work has explored the unremarkable systems that have been architected to help sustain and form information technologies, including Nicole Starosielski’s history of undersea cables (2015), Eden Medina’s history of cybernetic systems in Allende’s Chile (2011), and Benjamin Peters’ history of the Soviet Internet (2017). Relatedly, there have been a growing number of calls to recognize the centrality of data for forming subjectivities and organizing the world (Striphas, 2011; van Dijck, 2013; Andrejevic, Hearn and Kennedy, 2015; Pasquale, 2015; Beer, 2016; O’Neil, 2016; Cheney-Lippold, 2017; Tufekci, 2017; Vaidhyanathan, 2018; Bowker, 2018; Noble, 2018; Plantin *et al.*, 2018). These and other studies demonstrate that significant attention needs to be paid to the design and implementation of material and immaterial data infrastructures, infrastructures that help make possible the production, dissemination, and circulation of culture. Infrastructure is never simply a neutral conduit or platform; it always has a politics, shaping the arrangements of power and authority in human associations and the activities within those arrangements (Winner, 1986). Generally, the point of infrastructure is to be constructive and supportive, but what exactly is being constructed and supported is not always so readily apparent. As work on socio-technical systems has shown, understanding the significance of technology requires attention to the technology itself but also to the ways technology enrolls people, places, systems, and interests. This broader understanding of the politics of platforms has been adopted by academic researchers (Gillespie, 2010, 2017), while simultaneously animating the aspirations of many leading technology companies—consider Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of creating a global community atop the foundation of Facebook as a prominent example (Zuckerberg, 2017; Swisher, 2018). Understanding, for instance, the construction of social networking sites alongside communities connects arrangements of data to arrangements of power and draws attention to related issues of ownership, access, transparency, accountability, accuracy, justice, and control, and how these arrangements shift over time and across contexts (Bowker and Star, 1999; Couldry and van Dijck, 2015; Pasquale, 2015; Peters, 2015, p. 2; van Doorn, 2017). We seek contributions for a special issue of *Cultural Studies *exploring the relationships between data, infrastructure, and politics, and how those relationships affect the study of culture. Cultural Studies can significantly address and engage the growing challenges of such a “constructive politics of infrastructures.” Cultural Studies’ investment in the articulation of politics, culture, and “everything that is not culture” (Thompson, 1961) provides an important—and, to date, underutilized—framework for analyzing the degree to which data, technologies, and infrastructures are rearticulating configurations of power and affecting lived experience. Potential contributors to this volume should submit a 500-word abstract outlining their object(s) of study, their research approach, and how their potential article draws on and extends the traditions, approaches, and projects of Cultural Studies. When submitting a proposal, please include name, affiliation, and contact information in the document, and send submissions as a PDF to co-editors Blake Hallinan (blake.hallinan(a)colorado.edu) and James N. Gilmore ( jngilmo(a)clemson.edu) Submissions should be received by November 15, 2018 for review. Authors will be notified if proposals are accepted within a month of the deadline. If accepted, full articles will be provisionally due to the special issue editors by July 15, 2019. In order to be deemed publishable in the special issue, all articles will undergo both editorial and blind peer review. All articles must adhere to the *formatting requirements* <https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rcus20&page…> of *Cultural Studies *to avoid rejection. Please direct all queries or concerns ahead of submission to both special issue editors. Topics may include but are not limited to: · Infrastructuralism as a way of thinking, distinct from structuralism, post-structuralism, and other relevant intellectual movements · Infrastructure’s implications for state politics, elections, protest movements, and other modes of political activism · How marginalized groups utilize infrastructure to mobilize resistive politics . · How data-based digital technologies challenge the epistemology of media and cultural studies · The relationship between network infrastructures and colonization projects around the globe · Media ecological studies that position cultural politics alongside environmental issues · The infrastructures of emergent surveillance systems, such as Amazon’s facial recognition program · How the mundanity of infrastructure relates to larger operations of power and authority -- Blake Hallinan PhD Candidate Managing Editor and Art Director of *Cultural Studies* Dept. of Communication University of Colorado Boulder blake.hallinan(a)colorado.edu www.blakehallinan.com

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