The Information; Going Feral on the Net: the Qualities of Survival in a Wild, Wired World; Interop

cyberscholars

Cyberscholar Working Group at Yale

Wednesday, May 2, 6:00pm ET

40 Ashmun Street, New Haven, Yale University.

The Cyberscholar Working Group is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the MIT, Yale Law School Information Society Project, Columbia University, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research. This month's presentations will include: "Incitement to Riot in the age of Flash Mobs" (Margot Kaminski, Executive Director, Yale Information Society Project); "Innovation in Online Gambling" (Rebecca Bolin, Postdoctoral Associate in Law and Fellow, Yale Information Society Project); and Beyond "digital literacy" there is Cybercy: what does this new concept index? (Catalina Laserna, Berkman Center for Internet & Society). RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

The Information: James Gleick talks about his new book

Tuesday, May 8, 12:30pm ET, Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Classroom 1023, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live.

James Gleick, author of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, will discuss his new book. James Gleick is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Harvard and the author of a half-dozen books on science, technology, and culture. His latest bestseller, translated into 20 languages, is The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, which the NY Times called "ambitious, illuminating, and sexily theoretical." Whatever they meant by that. They also said "Don't make the mistake of reading it quickly." RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

Going Feral on the Net: the Qualities of Survival in a Wild, Wired World

Tuesday, May 15, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, Cambridge, MA. This event will be webcast live.

How do we balance the empowering possibilities of the networked public sphere with the dark, unsettling, and even dangerous energies of cyberspace? Matthew Battles blends a deep-historical perspective on the internet with storytelling that reaches into its weird, uncanny depths. It's a hybrid approach, reflecting the web's way of landing us in a feral state—the predicament of a domestic creature forced to live by its imperfectly-rekindled instincts in a world where it is never entirely at home. The feral is a metaphor—and maybe more than just a metaphor—for thriving in cyberspace, a habitat that changes too rapidly for anyone truly to be native. This talk will weave critical and reflective discussion of online experience with a short story from Battles' new collection, The Sovereignties of Invention. Matthew Battles is program fellow with metaLAB (at) Harvard, an academic and creative collaborative devoted to the exploration of technology in the arts and humanities, hosted by the Berkman Center. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

special event

Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems

Wednesday, May 30, 6:00pm ET, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA.

The practice of standardization has been facilitating innovation and economic growth for centuries. The standardization of the railroad gauge revolutionized the flow of commodities, the standardization of money revolutionized debt markets and simplified trade, and the standardization of credit networks has allowed for the purchase of goods using money deposited in a bank half a world away. These advancements did not eradicate the different systems they affected; instead, each system has been transformed so that it can interoperate with systems all over the world, while still preserving local diversity. As Palfrey and Gasser show, interoperability is a critical aspect of any successful system—and now it is more important than ever. John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. Dr. Urs Gasser is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society's Executive Director. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

video/audio

Erica Robles-Anderson on Mediated Congregation - Architecting the Crystal Cathedral

Within the past thirty years the rise of a new style of worship, coined “megachurch,” has transformed the American religious landscape, by blending audio, visual, and communications technologies within postmodern architectures, megachurches radically re-imagine Christianity. In this talk Erica Robles-Anderson — Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University — reads megachurches as part of late 20th century shift towards conducting collective life in increasingly mobile, mediated, and distributed arrangements. video/audio on our website>

video/audio

Dalida Maria Benfield on Decolonial Media Aesthetics and Women’s ICT4D Video

ICT4D (Information Communication Technology for Development) powerfully frames women’s grassroots video production in the Global South, much of which is distributed widely through YouTube. Often, these videos reproduce racialized and gendered discourses - legacies of colonialism - in their narratives of economic, social, and technological progress. However, there are also videos by women’s groups that defy both the historical linearity and spatial fragmentation of the ICT4D framework, and instead remix, reclassify, and globally reconnect women’s experiences in the contemporary moment. In this talk Dalida María Benfield — artist, activist, and Berkman Center fellow — discusses how ICT4D videos make compelling claims for other historical narratives and visions for women’s future lives, identities, and uses of information communication technologies. video/audio on our website>