Crossposted from my Substack supercyberlicious. Yes, of course, I felt dirty. Aside from the guilt of pumping several pineapple’s worth of carbon into the atmosphere, it was also…
I am a researcher and educator focused on open source software, digital infrastructure, and critical approaches to new technologies. I received my PhD in English from The CUNY…
Getting the middle finger from your audience isn’t typically a desired outcome for a talk, but it was exactly the type of reaction I was hoping for during…
I’m excited to share an open access version of my chapter “Towards a a Software of the Oppressed: A Freirean Approach to Surveillance Capitalism.” The chapter was recently…
#teaching agency in a programmed world From our living rooms to the workplace, digital surveillance and control are on the rise. How did computing become so scary, and…
Fighting for ground in the public imagination This post is adapted from a talk I gave at the University of Victoria on October 21, 2019 as the Honorary…
Ten weird tricks for resisting surveillance capitalism in and through the classroom . . . next term!
(Cross-posted on HASTAC) Greetings, educators! Are you watching in sheer terror as BigTech’s four horsemen Surveillance, Exploitation, Manipulation, and Cataclysmic Hubris gallop wildly down the information superhighway, downloading…
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining the UC San Diego Library as the Digital Scholarship Librarian. After two and half years of working in a variety of…
UC San Diego’s Race and Oral History Project gives students a central role in documenting the histories of the diverse communities that make up our city.
To what extent can the general public participate in and benefit from the production of a dissertation? How might the private and anxiety-ridden processes of education be transformed into a public good and social joy?
Networks for us, by us: Participatory design for a San Diego Digital Commons It’s often taken for granted that everyday users should have little say in the design…
What happens when you invite the public to review your messy dissertation drafts? About four months ago, I launched #SocialDiss, an experimental project in which I’ve committed to “socializing”…
A global commons for students to network in-progress writing and feedback across disciplines, institutions, and publics. The following is a grant proposal written in October 2015 soliciting funding from…
To what extent can the general public participate in and benefit from the production of a dissertation? How might the private and anxiety-ridden processes of education be transformed into a public good and social joy? Are the imperfect artifacts of learning to be hidden and disposed of as shameful waste, or might they provide fertile soil for the cultivation of a global learning community? Could the form of the dissertation itself blossom into something more vibrant and responsive to today’s world in the process?
I use “participatory infrastructure” here to signify digital infrastructure whose mechanisms are transparent to its user community, whose user community is able to critically assess the ways in which it affects and mediates their community, and which is designed to invite continued development by that user community. Participatory infrastructure requires open technical protocols and social organization that encourages all users, regardless of expertise, to participate in discussions regarding that infrastructure’s ongoing development.