Dear colleagues, I’m pleased to announce the publication of a new special issue of Cultural Studies on “Infrastructural Politics,” edited by myself (Blake Hallinan) and James N. Gilmore. This issue examines infrastructure as both a mode of governance and a site of political contestation through diverse case studies including digital supply chains, dredging in Dubai, police body cameras in the US, Russian data centers in Finland, coal mining in Pakistan’s Thar desert, streaming media platforms, and more. Please see below and circulate widely. New issue: Cultural Studies - Volume 35, Numbers 4-5 (2021) https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcus20/current Introduction: Infrastructural politics amidst the coils of control [Blake Hallinan and James N. Gilmore] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895259 Scaling Problems and Solutions: Redirected entanglements in the digital supply chain [Matthew Hockenberry] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895242 Thermopolitics of data: cloud infrastructures and energy futures [Julia Velkova] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895243 ‘The world is sinking:’ sand, urban infrastructure, and world-cities [Burç Köstem] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895244 Civilizing infrastructure [Blake Hallinan] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895245 Infrastructures of discovery: examining podcast ratings and rankings [Jeremy Wade Morris] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895246 Working For, Against, and Alongside Formalization: Tuning sound for infrastructures: artificial intelligence, automation, and the cultural politics of audio mastering [Jonathan Sterne and Elena Razlogova] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895247 Seeing like an infrastructure: avidity and difference in algorithmic recommendation [Nick Seaver] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895248 The care and feeding of 9-1-1 infrastructure: dispatcher culture as media work and infrastructural transformation [Elizabeth Ellcessor] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895249 Fissures in algorithmic power: platforms, code, and contestation [Fabian Ferrari and Mark Graham] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895250 Seeing infrastructure: race, facial recognition and the politics of data [Nikki Stevens and Os Keyes] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895252 Sweeping the city: infrastructure, informality, and the politics of maintenance [Constance Gordan and Kyle Byron] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895253 Analyzing Imaginaries, Imagining Interventions: Smart homes: domestic futurity as Infrastructure [Heather Suzanne Woods] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895254 ‘We don't even know who owns it’: the infrastructural imaginary of Spruce Pine, NC [D. Travers Scott] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895255 Coal ground [Ayesha Omer] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895260 Recoding the city: cultural mediation of short-term rental platforms in the US [Torin Monahan] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895258 Data(-)based ambivalence regarding NYC 311 data infrastructure [Lindsay Poirier] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895256 Mischievous infrastructure: tactical secrecy through infrastructural friction in police video systems [CJ Reynolds] https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.1895257 -- Blake Hallinan Postdoctoral Research Hebrew University blake.hallinan@mail.huji.ac.il @blakeplease