News Archive

As part of the international App Studies Initiative, Michael Dieter and Nate Tkacz have published the findings of their study of Covid apps, funded by the ESRC. Here is the abstract, published in the Internet Policy Review:

This article provides an exploratory systematic mapping of the global ecosystem of COVID-19 pandemic response apps. After considering policy updates by Google Play’s and Apple’s App Store, we analyse all the available response apps in July 2020; their different response types; the apps’ developers and geographical distribution; the ecosystem’s ‘generativity’ and developers’ responsiveness during the unfolding pandemic; the apps’ discursive positioning; and material conditions of their development. Google and Apple are gatekeepers of these app ecosystems and exercise control on different layers, shaping the pandemic app response as well as the relationships between governments, citizens, and other actors. We suggest that this global ecosystem of pandemic responses reflects an exceptional mode of what we call ‘pandemic platform governance’, where platforms have negotiated their commercial interests and the public interest in exceptional circumstances.

Towards the end of Wes Anderson’s film Fantastic Mr. Fox is a much-discussed scene in which the eponymous protagonist, admitting to his phobia of wolves, attempts in vain to herald in various languages a lone wolf, whose lack of clothing marks him as “wild.” The scene brings into focus the cunning that appears to make the fox “more human” and less bête than other creatures, including the lion whose brute strength must be combined in Machiavelli’s prince with foxy know-how in order to frighten off the terroristic and voraciously savage wolves. I interrogate the “cunning of cunning” signified by the fox—the second-order feigning of the feint and sovereign capacity to efface one’s tracks supposedly proper to the human and by which Agamben he gets people to believe, if only for a while, that he is the first to know who will have been first. I track—à pas de loup—Derrida’s readings of Machiavelli, Agamben, and Lacan in the third, fourth, and twelfth sessions of the first year of La bête et le souverain in order develop and set out the political stakes of his indictment of Agamben’s strategic feint—an indictment that extends not only to his theory of biopolitics and of life but to his ontologization of power, potency, and (im)potentiality more generally.

We are pleased to announce a new job opportunity. We are recruiting for an Assistant Professor. Deadline for applications: 21 Feb For details of the position please follow this link:

https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?owner=5062452&ownertype=fair&jcode=1882095&vt_template=1457&adminview=1

Women in Theory has published a book forum on Naomi Waltham-Smith’s Shattering Biopolitics: Militant Listening and the Sound of Life (Fordham UP, 2021) with contributions from Erin Graff Zivin, Michael Gallope, Daniele Lorenzini, and Julie Beth Napolin, as well as a response from Naomi.

Link to forum: https://womenintheory.org/waltham-smith/

Here's an short piece by the European Research Council about a recent publication, "Racial Attention Deficit." Available in seven languages.

Link to the article: https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/435570-towards-a-better-understanding-of-inequality-at-work?WT.mc_id=exp

This was not actually a TED talk, but otherwise it was genre conforming. It was one of 10 "Breakthrough Presentations" at the Falling Walls | Science Summit 2022 in Berlin in November. Recently posted on YouTube.

Link to the YouTube video: Power Asymmetries: Breaking the Wall of an Algorithm-Based Society | David Stark - YouTube

This autumn has seen the publication of two chapters on sound in literary and philosophical thought by Naomi Waltham-Smith: “Unexceptional Events; Or, Cixous’s Scarcely Audible Literature,” in Literature and Event: Twenty-First Century Reformulations, ed. Manta Mukim and Derek Attridge (New York: Routledge, 2022) and “Deconstruction and Timbre,” in The Oxford Handbook of Timbre, ed. Emily I. Dolan and Alexander Rehding (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

CIM is excited to offer a brand new Data Visualisation Masters degree starting in the 2022/23 academic year!

This new interdisciplinary degree builds on CIM’s specialist research and teaching expertise, exploring visualisations as key interfaces for communication, decision-making and engagement across media, science, industry, policy and advocacy. This unique combination will allow students to connect technical and scientific aspects of data visualisation creation with socio-cultural and critical understanding. Students will learn how to design, develop, deploy and interpret data visualisations through methodological, conceptual and practice-based learning.  

 MASc Data Visualisation is also CIM’s first MASc degree, a flexible Masters where students can customise their learning trajectories through interdisciplinary topics and modules, and align the emphasis to their interests and strengths. Through the core modules “Visualisation Foundations”, “Data Visualisation in Science, Culture and Public Policy” and “Advanced Visualisation Design Labs”, along with a selection of a diversity of electives, students will be able to build their unique, interdisciplinary perspective into designing, developing, deploying and interpreting data visualisations. The students will gain expertise through interactions between Data, Code, Design and Theory, developed through learning to code as a basis for creating visualisations. The degree is open to students from all disciplinary backgrounds and no previous coding experience is needed. 

Further information on the degree and application details could be found here

Academic freedom and free speech are hotly debated topics at this time, with the UK government seeking to pass legislation to impose new duties on universities to protect and promote free speech. This short article considers the political and epistemic effects of certain positions within this contested field, focusing in particular on whether dogmatism ought not enjoy the protection of academic freedom insofar as it is inimical to free inquiry.

Link to the paper: : https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/essay-waltham-smith

Nate Tkacz shares his thoughts in The Conversation on the proposed plans for a new GOV.UK app, which aims to provide a one stop shop for many government services.

Link to paper: https://theconversation.com/new-government-app-will-provide-access-to-public-services-but-questions-around-privacy-and-design-remain-169899