February 2020 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Polymedia
by Traci Belanger 11 Jul '25

11 Jul '25

Hi everyone, does anyone have suggestions for articles on "polymedia" or specifically how polymedia interacts with media ecology? Thanks so much! Traci Belanger --- May all winds at your back inspire you, and may you have harmony and peace today.

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For my US colleagues: an 8 minute survey, where your input might make a difference
by Patricia Aufderheide 08 May '25

08 May '25

I know, exactly what you don't need to do at this crazy point in the semester. At AU, Profs. Aram Sinnreich, Joseph Graf and I have been working with Electronic Frontier Foundation and New Media Rights to design a survey about DMCA exemption language and its accessibility. Would you be interested in taking, sharing with your students and networks, including putting on social media the survey link <http://bit.ly/2nEfY8j>? Here it is again: *http://bit.ly/2nEfY8j <http://bit.ly/2nEfY8j>* Your generosity much appreciated! 👏 -- Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor, School of Communication Founder, Center for Media & -- Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor, School of Communication Founder, Center for Media & Social Impact American University 4400 Massachusetts Av., NW American University, Washington, DC 20016-8017 McKinley Hall 323 @paufder @cmsimpact cmsimpact.org paufder(a)american.edu 202-885-2069 office <202-643-5356> 240-643-4805 mobile <202-643-5356> "The world we have received also belongs to those who follow us." --Pope Francis

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Non-software uses of GitHub
by Jim Herbsleb 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

I’m looking for GitHub repositories that are used for things other than software, especially where users are actively collaborating rather than just putting together static collections. So far, we have found a few books being written, some musical transcriptions being error-checked, and some policy documents maintained online. Does anyone know of any examples of these or other categories? Any pointers much appreciated. Happy to share what we find with anyone interested. Jim ---- Jim Herbsleb Carnegie Mellon University http://herbsleb.org/ Google Scholar profile: https://goo.gl/sv3p7l

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CfP: Gamevironments Regular Issue - Deadline 1. Feb 2020
by Lisa Kienzl 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Dear Colleagues, below you find the Call for Papers for the online journal GAMEVIRONMENTS (Regular Issue) -- due Feb. 1 2020. We are looking forward to your contributions! Best, Lisa ---------------------------------------------------- Call for Papers: journal GAMEVIRONMENTS Regular Issue 2020 ================ To further explore the multilayered socio-cultural and political contexts of video games and gaming, the international peer-reviewed journal GAMEVIRONMENTS is calling for submissions for its Regular Issue 2020. https://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/ DEADLINES The journal follows a fixed timeline for the Regular Issue each year: 01.02. Full Chapter Submission 15.03. Review Results Returned 01.05. Revised Chapter Submission summer Online-Publication GAMEVIRONMENTS seeks to explore both established approaches and new frontiers of researching video games/gaming as related to religion, culture, and society. The journal encourages inter- and multidisciplinary works combining for example Cultural Studies, History, Religious studies, Theology, Ludology, and Psychology. All submitted articles will be reviewed on a double-blind peer-review basis. PAPER TYPES We include different categories of texts in the journal: a) regular academic articles Normally, articles should be between 5.000 words and 10.000 words in length. In general, a clear structure is of course helpful to understand your argumentation (introduction, discussing the relevance of your idea, theoretical frame, used method(s), case study and amount of new knowledge). b) interviews Next to academic articles we are interested in projects related to games, gamers, gaming and religion, culture, and society. For instance, if you have an interview with a game designer, a pedagogue working with games, etc., please feel free to share it in our journal! c) research reports Sometimes you may just want to give an impression of your current research, an introduction to a new project, or just have a longing for acclamation of about the 5% of successful third part funding that we get for this "weird stuff" – please feel free to do so :) In general, such research reports should be short descriptions between 3000 and 5000 words in length. They are not peer-reviewed, but we as journal editors will give some revisions if necessary. d) book reviews There was a flow in publications concerned with games and religion/culture in the last years, so it could be interesting to introduce and discuss some of them. If you are reading a new book which you think can be helpful for other researchers, feel free to propose a review. Reviews should be around 1000 words. Please note that in most cases, the journal will not be able to provide a free copy for reviews, but will try to source a free copy for you. e) game reviews Due to the fact that we are a games journal that wants to collect, systematize and further develop the various recent multidisciplinary approaches in the research area, we need to know our way around in our field, namely GAMES! So if you are playing a game which you think can be an interesting and promising object of investigation, please send us proposals for a game review. Reviews should be around 1000 words. Please note that in most cases, the journal will not be able to provide a free copy for reviews. Video games are full of images, so it would be a good idea to include some of them, illustrating your argumentation. But, for any image, you need to hold the copyright. Please ensure that! Before publishing with the journal, you need to sign a copyright declaration which we provide. Please send all images as .jpg file(s) to us due to formatting issues. Besides your contribution and images, we need keywords (up to 10), an abstract of up to 200 words, and a brief biographical paragraph (100 to 150 words) with your current institutional address and email address. Please consult the gamevironments submission style sheet before submitting your paper, as well as the Help Desk for some general principles. There is no article processing charge. If you are ready, please send your contribution as an RTF file to the managing editor: kienzl(a)uni-bremen.de. https://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/ -- Dr.Dr. Lisa Kienzl, MA wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin | postdoctoral researcher Arbeitsgebiet Literaturen und Medien der Religionen | Literature and Media of Religions Universität Bremen | University of Bremen Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Religionspädagogik | Institute of Religious Studies and Religious Education Sportturm (SpT) Postfach 330 440 D-28359 Bremen T. +49 (0)421 218 67912 https://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/

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Gamevironments: Special Issue on "National(ism), Identity and Video Gaming" out now
by Lisa Kienzl 30 Dec '20

30 Dec '20

Dear Colleagues, we are really happy to share with you today news of GAMEVIRONMENTS newest Special Issue on "National(ism), Identity and Video Gaming" edited by Lisa Kienzl and Kathrin Trattner with contributions from: * "Glory to Trumpland! Critically Playing Border Games" by Melissa Kagen * Round Table Discussion on Nation(alism), Identity and Video Gaming with Megan Condis, Marijam Didžgalvytė, Georg Hobmeier and Souvik Mukherjee * "Playing America. An Introduction to American Culture through Video Games" by Michael Fuchs and Stefan Rabitsch * "Research Report on Curse the Fiends, Their Children, Too: Cultural Heritage and Subversion of Fictional Tropes in Bloodborne" by Sarah Zaidan, Richard Pilbeam and Elin Carstensdottir * Interview with Mira Wardhaningsih from StoryTale Studios on the Indonesian Horror Game "Pamali" * Interview with Déyfou-lah Sani Bah-Traore on the Togolese Game "Origin – the Rise of Dzitri" * "We. The Revolution, a Review. Vive la Révolution or Death and All His Friends" by Kevin Recher * "Kingdom Come: Deliverance. A Bohemian Forest Simulator" by Eugen Pfister You find all further information here: https://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/completed-quests/. Best wishes, Lisa Kienzl managing editor gamevironments -- Dr.Dr. Lisa Kienzl, MA wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin | postdoctoral researcher Arbeitsgebiet Literaturen und Medien der Religionen | Literature and Media of Religions Universität Bremen | University of Bremen Institut für Religionswissenschaft und Religionspädagogik | Institute of Religious Studies and Religious Education Sportturm (SpT) Postfach 330 440 D-28359 Bremen T. +49 (0)421 218 67912 https://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/

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Participations: Latest issue out now!
by Judith Rosenbaum-Andre 22 May '20

22 May '20

Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies has just released its latest issue! This open-access journal features three special sections. The first is aimed at understanding readers, reading, and digital media, the second looks at interviews as a research method, and the third section features nine essays from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth conference on "Researching past cinema audiences: Archives, Memories and Methods". With an editorial introduction by Martin Barker and a series of articles that provide innovative theoretical, methodological, as well as empirical insights, including the audience reception of professional wrestling stars, the circulation of film and cultural capital, and the understanding of resistance as observed in online discussions, this issue is packed with relevant and contemporary insight into audience research in 2019. The issue can be found here: http://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%201/contents.htm -- Judith E. Rosenbaum, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Communication and Journalism University of Maine 414 Dunn Hall Orono, ME 04469 www.juditherosenbaum.com/ @JudithRBaum

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New Book: Incorporating the Digital Commons
by Benjamin Birkinbine 02 Mar '20

02 Mar '20

(Apologies for Cross-Posting) Hello everyone, AoIR members may be interested in my new book, "Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software" (University of Westminster Press, 2020). In the book, I draw from a critical political economic framework to investigate the intersection of the digital commons and digital capitalism. I use three case studies (Microsoft's history with FLOSS communities, Red Hat's relationship with the Fedora Project, and Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems) to illustrate different dynamics between FLOSS communities and corporations. The best part is that Westminster is making the book available for free via open access. After all, a book about the digital commons should be available as a digital commons. You can find more information (and free digital copies of the book) here: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book39/ Thanks! Ben Birkinbine Benjamin J. Birkinbine (he/him/his) Assistant Professor Reynolds School of Journalism & Center for Advanced Media Studies University of Nevada, Reno @bjbirkin

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new trove of potential research materials from Internet Archive
by Patricia Aufderheide 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Brewster Kahle has managed to get hold of zillions of microfiche records of journals, newspapers, magazines, etc. (think Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature) and the AI folks are busy digitizing them. They've made headway, and Caitlin Olson at AI sent me this information, in case it whets a research appetite: * This Archive item has some photos and information on the collection: https://archive.org/details/SerialsOnMicrofilmCollection <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archive.org_details_Se…> * Here's the start to our collection getting digitized: https://archive.org/details/sim_microfilm<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archive.org_details_si…> * And here's a spreadsheet with a bunch of the titles we ended up with, as well as the metadata: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m_QqU3iQqLD7W8VDzxER8WAEqKY86fJWyOM…<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_spread…> Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor, School of Communication (she/her/hers) PhD Program Director Founder, Center for Media & Social Impact American University 4400 Massachusetts Av., NW American University, Washington, DC 20016-8017 McKinley Hall 323 @paufder @cmsimpact cmsimpact.org<http://cmsimpact.org> paufder(a)american.edu<mailto:paufder@american.edu> 202-885-2069 office 240-643-4805 mobile Reclaiming Fair Use--t<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022637419X?pf_rd_p=d1f45e03-8b73-4c9a-9be…>he second edition is out, with new stories, quizzes and entirely new chapters on the surprising success of fair use in enabling creativity!

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Re: [Air-L] Event - Autonomous Vehicles: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
by Jake Goldenfein 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Dear AoIR Community If you are in the New York City area on March 13, Cornell Tech is hosting an event – Autonomous Vehicles: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Please visit the event website to register your interest in attending: https://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/autonomousvehicles (We are still accepting registrations). --- As public perceptions of autonomous vehicles waver, rigorous ethical and political analysis of the future of transport has never been more important. Looking beyond questions of driver and pedestrian safety, this workshop will investigate other possible dark sides of autonomous vehicle deployments to expose and understand societal consequences. Different stakeholders pursue different visions for the development of autonomous transport, each with different business models, technological configurations, governance structures, and policy outcomes. Each vision generates different social, ethical, and political implications that often escape ethical analyses focused exclusively on safety. However, autonomous vehicles systems also have the potential to cause economic exploitation, anti-democratic public governance, environmental degradation, and the dehumanization of public space. Now is the time to identify and avoid the worst that could happen, and to ensure these complex systems are oriented towards the improvement of individual, social and civic life. Workshop Overview | This single day event will bring together experts from engineering, policy, and industry to discuss the social implications of autonomous transport from different perspectives. We plan to explore questions such as: * How different vehicle deployments change how human occupants are identified and defined, and how that may affect questions of privacy and autonomy. * How different business models like passenger ride-sharing, fleet management, or private vehicle ownership require different technological configurations, and what they require in terms of data flows and public accountability. * How different vehicle systems require changes to public space or re-instrumenting of roadways, and who has the power to determine the shape of those new urban environments. * How business decisions, and the technologies required to implement them, interact with broader policy questions around public life, the environment, and international geopolitics. Confirmed speakers include: * Jane Lappin (Toyota Research Institute) * Andrew Kun (University of New Hampshire) * Li Jin (New York University) * Alain L. Kornhauser (Princeton University) * Ignacio Alvarez (Intel) * Nahom Byene (Rand Corporation) * Janet Vertesi (Princeton University) * Luke Fletcher (Toyota Research Institute) * Nikolas Martelaro (Carnegie Mellon University) * Bill Horrey (AAA Traffic Safety Foundation) Many thanks! -- Dr Jake Goldenfein Postdoctoral Research Fellow Digital Life Initiative<http://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/> Cornell Tech | Cornell University 2 West Loop Rd, New York, NY 10044 SSRN<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2722511>

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[CfA EASST/4S Prague] Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds
by Yoehan Oh 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Dear list members, Apologies for cross-posting. Please take into consideration submitting your abstract to the open panel session at the EASST/4S conference in Prague, August 2020, "Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds." The upcoming EASST/4S conference 2020, the joint conference of the annual European Science and Technology Studies (STS) conference and the worldwide major annual STS conference, will be held in Prague, August 18-21, 2020 (official website: https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/) If you have any question, feel free to contact me (ohy(a)rpi.edu) If you might, hopefully, find this interesting to others in your networks, please share it with them. Key dates and the CfA are as the following: KEY DATES 29 February 2020: Deadline for abstract submission: 15 April 2020: Notification of acceptance of all abstracts TITLE *Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds *(*Open panel 131*) ABSTRACT Some scholars in digital humanities and critical internet and digital technologies studies have asked for bringing critical concerns about race, gender, postcoloniality, and other inequal power structures to their field (Nakamura 2013; Noble et al. 2016; McPherson 2013; Posner 2016; Risam 2018; Benjamin 2019). One way to address those concerns is illuminating technically-inventive subjectivities, by appreciating and thus empowering them through conceptualizations they deserve. STSers have conceptualized them and their artifacts as “Black vernacular technological creativity,” “techno-vernacular creativity,” (Fouché 2006; Gaskins 2019), “innovation from below” (Williams 2018), “ethnocomputing,” (Petrillo 1994; Tedre et-al. 2006; Eglash 1999), “postcolonial computing,” (Irani et-al. 2010; cf. Burrell 2012), and “black software” (McIlwain 2019); historians of computing have studied information architectures, hardware, and software in the Middle East, Latin America, East Asia, Midwestern U.S., and (post-)communist contexts (Bowker 1994; Medina 2011; Tinn 2018; Rankin 2018; Švelch 2018; Biagioli et-al. 2019). To further these conceptualizations, this panel will focus on less resourceful worlds’ captures of knowledge technologies, predominated by a few resourceful countries’ R&D communities like U.S., Canada, some Western Europe countries, China, and Japan: Knowledge discovery by data, Data engineering, Semantic technologies, and Search engines, etc (Collins 1987; Forsythe 1993). Questions to be addressed are: How indigenous, aboriginal, vernacular, decolonial, de-ColdWar, or less capitalistically/settler-colonially exploitative the knowledge engineering practices at scales by technical actors in the underrecognized/emerging worlds can be? Which speculative, experimental, or empirical cases can we dig into as the Indigenous “Knowledge engineering” Systems (Watson-Verran et al. 1995; Brereton et-al. 2015; Chamunorwa et-al. 2018)? KEYWORDS: knowledge engineering, knowledge technologies, technological agency, indigenous knowledge systems, emerging worlds THREE CATEGOREIS: Big Data; Information, Computing and Media Technology; Postcolonial/Decolonial STS CONVENORS: Yoehan Oh, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Wish you a happy new year. Best, Yoehan REFERENCES * Acker, Amelia, and Joan Donovan. 2019. "Data craft: a theory/methods package for critical internet studies." *Information, Communication & Society *22(11): 1590-1609. * Aouragh, Miriyam, and Paula Chakravartty. 2016. "Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies." *Media, Culture & Society *38(4): 559-575. * Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. *Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim Code. *John Wiley & Sons. * Biagioli, Mario, and Vincent Antonin Lépinay, eds. 2019. *From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times. *Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. * Bowker, Geoffrey C. 1994. *Science on the Run: Information management and industrial geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920-1940. *MIT press. * Brereton, Margot, Paul Roe, Ronald Schroeter, and A. Lee Hong. 2015. "Indigenous knowledge technologies: Moving from knowledge capture to engagement, reciprocity and use." In *At the Intersection of Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge and Technology Design, *edited by Nicola Bidwell and Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, 239-258. Informing Science. * Burrell, Jenna. 2012. *Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet cafés of urban Ghana. *MIT Press. * Chamunorwa, Michael Bosomefi, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, and Tariq Zaman. 2018. "An Intermediary Database Node in the Namibian Communities Indigenous Knowledge Management System." In *Digitisation of Culture: Namibian and International Perspectives, *edited by Dharm Singh Jat, Jürgen Sieck, Hippolyte N'Sung-Nza Muyingi, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Anicia Peters, and Shawulu Nggada, 99-117. Singapore: Springer, * Collins, Harry M. 1987. "Expert systems and the science of knowledge." In *The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, *edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, Trevor Pinch, 329-348. MIT Press. * Ebner, Susanne. 2019. “Hierarchies of Knowledge: Usage of a Chinese Media App in Rural Tamil Nadu” presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, U.S. * Eglash, Ron. 1999. *African fractals: Modern computing and indigenous design. *Rutgers University Press. * Forsythe, Diana E. 1993. "Engineering knowledge: The construction of knowledge in artificial intelligence." *Social studies of science *23(3): 445-477. * Fouché, Rayvon. 2006. "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud: African Americans, American artifactual culture, and black vernacular technological creativity." *American Quarterly *58(3): 639-661. * Gaskins, Nettrice R. 2019. “Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation across the African Diaspora and Global South.” In *Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life, *edited by Ruha Benjamin, 252-274. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. * Irani, Lilly, Janet Vertesi, Paul Dourish, Kavita Philip, and Rebecca E. Grinter. 2010. "Postcolonial computing: a lens on design and development." In *Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, *ACM. 1311-1320. * Kita, Chigusa, and Hyungsub Choi. 2016. "History of computing in East Asia." *IEEE Annals of the History of Computing *38(2): 8-10. * McIlwain, Charlton. 2019. *Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter. *Oxford University Press, USA. * McPherson, Tara. 2013. “US operating systems at mid-century: The intertwining of race and UNIX.” In *Race after the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White, *27-43. Routledge. * Medina, Eden. 2011. *Cybernetic revolutionaries: Technology and politics in Allende's Chile. *MIT Press. * Nakamura, Lisa, and Peter Chow-White, eds. 2013. *Race after the Internet. *Routledge. * Noble, Safiya Umoja. 2018. *Algorithms of Oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. *NYU Press. * Noble, Safiya Umoja, and Brendesha M. Tynes. 2016. *The intersectional internet: Race, sex, class, and culture online. *Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. * Petrillo, Anthony. 1994. “Ethnocomputers in Nigerian Computer Education.” Paper presented at the 31st Annual Conference of the Mathematical Association of Nigeria (March 1994). * Philip, Kavita, Lilly Irani, and Paul Dourish. 2012. "Postcolonial computing: A tactical survey." *Science, Technology, & Human Values *37(1): 3-29. * Posner, Miriam. 2016. “What’s Next: The Radical Unrealised Potential of Digital Humanities.” In *Debates in the digital humanities 2016, *edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein, 32-41. University of Minnesota Press. * Risam, Roopika. 2018. *New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy. *Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. * Snow, Jackie. 2018. “We’re in a diversity crisis”: Cofounder of Black in AI on what’s poisoning algorithms in our lives.” *MIT Technology Review *(Feb 14, 2018). * Stöckelová, Tereza, and Jaroslav Klepal. 2018. "Chinese Medicine on the Move into Central Europe: A Contribution to the Debate on Correlativity and Decentering STS." *East Asian Science, Technology and Society. *12(1): 57-79. * Rankin, Joy Lisi. 2018. *A People's History of Computing in the United States. *Harvard University Press. * Stevens, Hallam. 2019. "Digital Infrastructure in the Chinese Register." *Made in China Journal. *4(2): 84-89. * Švelch, Jaroslav. 2018. *Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games. *MIT Press. * Tedre, Matti, Erkki Sutinen, Esko Kähkönen, and Piet Kommers. 2006. "Ethnocomputing: ICT in cultural and social context." *Communications of the ACM *49(1): 126-130. * Tinn, Honghong. 2018. "Modeling Computers and Computer Models: Manufacturing Economic-Planning Projects in Cold War Taiwan, 1959–1968." *Technology and culture *59(5): S66-S99. * Watson-Verran, Helen, and David Turnbull. 1995. "Science and other indigenous knowledge systems." In *Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, *2nd edition, edited by Jasanoff, S., G. E. Markle, J. Peterson, and T. Pinch, 115-139. Sage. * Williams, Logan D. A. 2018. *Eradicating Blindness: Global Health Innovation from South Asia. *Palgrave Macmillan. -- Yoehan Oh Ph.D. Student Department of Science and Technology Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic institute 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180 USA e-mail: ohy(a)rpi.edu ; yoehan.oh(a)gmail.com phone: (518) 368-1257 pronoun: he/him

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