News/Research

Announcing the 2015-2016 HTNM Series!

24 Sep, 2015

Announcing the 2015-2016 HTNM Series!

We are excited to announce the 2015-2016 lineup of speakers for the History and Theory of New Media lecture series!

The History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series brings to campus leading humanities scholars working on issues of media transition and technological emergence. The series promotes new, interdisciplinary approaches to questions about the uses, meanings, causes, and effects of rapid or dramatic shifts in techno-infrastructure, information management, and forms of mediated expression. Presented by the Berkeley Center for New Media, this event is free and open to the public.

2015-2016 SCHEDULE OF LECTURES

10/14/15 Technologies of Simulation

with Claus Pias, Leuphana University of Lüneberg
5:00-6:30pm | BCNM Commons/340 Moffitt Undergraduate Library

Claus Pias is Professor for Media History and Media Theory at Leuphana University, Lüneburg. After studying Electrical Engineering at RWTH Aachen and Art History, German Literature, and Philosophy at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn he received a PhD from Bauhaus-Universität in 2000 for his study of the pre-history of the computer game, published in 2002 as Computer Spiel Welten. Before coming to Leuphana in 2010 Pias was Associate Professor for Media Technology and Media Philosophy at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Professor for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Essen, and Professor for Epistemology and Philosophy of Digital Media at the University of Vienna. He is the co-editor of Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft and of Kursbuch Medienkultur: Die massgeblichen Theorien von Brecht bis Baudrillard (1999). Some of the many books Pias has edited include Cybernetics/Kybernetik. Die Macy-Konferenzen 1946-1953 (2 volumes, 2003-4) as well as a volume of positions on media studies, Was waren Medien? (2010). Professor Pias’ research more generally focuses on the history and epistemology of computer simulation and the history of media studies.

11-16-15 Design, Geopolitics, and Planetary-Scale Computing

with Benjamin Bratton, UC San Diego
5:00-6:30pm | BCNM Commons, 340 Mofffitt Undergraduate Library

Benjamin H. Bratton is sociological, media, and design theorist. He is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and Director of the Center for Design & Geopolitics at the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology. His work sits at the intersections of contemporary social and political theory, computational media & infrastructure, and architectural & urban design problems and methodologies. Current research interests include: the philosophical problematics of the interfaciality, digital urbanism & media architecture, contemporary continental philosophy & aesthetic theory, institutional technology transfer protocols and platforms, design research management & methodologies, classical and contemporary sociological theory, history of the social sciences, organizational theory, and interaction and interface design. He is a frequent advisor and consultant to public and private organizations. He is the former Director of the Advanced Strategies Group at Yahoo! in Sunnyvale and Burbank, CA, and former Director of Information Architecture at Razorfish in Los Angeles and New York.

02-11-16 Machine-Generated Culpability

with Ahmed Ghappour, UC Hastings – College of the Law
5:00-6:30pm | BCNM Commons, 340 Mofffitt Undergraduate Library

Professor Ahmed Ghappour joined UC Hastings College of the Law in 2014. He directs the Liberty, Security and Technology Clinic, where his casework addresses on constitutional issues that arise in espionage, counterterrorism, and computer hacking cases. Professor Ghappour’s research focuses on the interplay between emerging technologies and national security—particularly in the context of the modern surveillance state, information security and the evolution of cyberspace as a theater of war. Before coming to UC Hastings, Professor Ghappour was at the University of Texas Law School, where he taught the National Security Clinic, the Civil Rights Clinic and directed the National Security Defense Project, an access to justice initiative that monitored national security and cybersecurity prosecutions in the United States. Prior to that, Professor Ghappour worked with Lt. Cmd. Charles Swift (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld), taking numerous national security cases to trial, and was a Staff Attorney at Reprieve UK, where he represented Guantanamo detainees in their habeas corpus proceedings.

03-17-16 Critical Play

with Mary Flanagan, Dartmouth College
5:00-6:30pm | 370 Dwinelle Hall

Mary Flanagan, the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, is a leading innovator, artist, educator and designer, whose works have included everything from game-inspired art, to commercial games that shift people’s thinking about biases and stereotypes. Her interest in play and culture led to her acclaimed book, Critical Play, with MIT Press (2009). Her fifth academic book, Values at Play in Digital Games, with philosopher Helen Nissenbaum, was released in 2014. Flanagan established the internationally recognized game research laboratory Tiltfactor (http://www.tiltfactor.org) in 2003 to invent “humanist” games and take on social through games. At Tiltfactor, designers create and research catchy games that teach or transform “under the radar” using psychological principles. She is widely known as a pundit of matters related to digital culture, publishing popular scholarship in venues such as USA Today, The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Inside Higher Education, The Daily Beast, and more. She hoolds an MFA in Film and Video from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Computational Media with a focus on game design from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

04-21-16 The Pirate Function

with Kavita Philip, UC Irvine
5:00-6:30pm | BCNM Commons, 340 Mofffitt Undergraduate Library

Kavita Philip is an Associate Professor in the UCI Department of History. Her research interests are in technology in the developing world; transnational histories of science and technology; gender, race, globalization and postcolonialism; environmental history; and new media theory. Her essays have appeared in the journals Cultural Studies, Postmodern Culture, NMediaC, Radical History Review, and Environment and History. Kavita Philip is author of Civilizing Natures (2003 and 2004), and co-editor of the volumes Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization (with Monshipouri, Englehart, and Nathan, 2003), Multiple Contentions (with Skotnes, 2003), Homeland Securities (with Reilly and Serlin, 2005), and Tactical Biopolitics (with da Costa, 2008). Her work in progress includes a monograph entitled Proper Knowledge, and a co-authored book with Terry Harpold entitled Going Native: Cyberculture and Postcolonialism.

The History and Theory of New Media series is produced by the Berkeley Center for New Media with support from the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).