Digital Humanities

Overview

Since the last iLaw conference was held nearly five years ago, the debates at the intersection of technology, law, and policy have continued to evolve. The introduction of new technologies – and new uses of old technologies – raise a broad range of problems to explore. To name a few examples, the intervening years have seen the growth of social networking tools; Facebook has gained more than 750 million users worldwide and has found itself at the center of privacy debates. Information technologies have played an unprecedented role in recent protests in the Middle East and North Africa, at times in tension with US foreign policy and export controls. In the US, government regulators and major ISPs continue to struggle with to find the right balance points for network governance and regulatory authority.

Growing Internet usage trends, disruptive technologies, increased efforts by governments and private entities to control the online space continue to reshape the cyber landscape. These issues, alongside the actors who provide the technologies and the users who engage with them, are at the center of many global policy debates. iLaw 2011 will be a unique opportunity to reexamine these areas of inquiry and core questions while engaging with the new and emerging issues and thorny debates that are constantly reshaping the field.

The 2011 iLaw Program is designed to take participants through the evolution of information technologies and the Internet, including their past, present, and future. Each module will provide a bridge to the past, beginning with a brief sketch of how a particular issue has evolved over the course of recent decades, both from an intellectual history perspective and via changes in policy, practice, and technology. Faculty and selected guests will use this foundation to explore how technical, social, legal, economic, and policy trends and debates have evolved over time, and identify the primary questions and issues that currently define the online space.

Speakers

• James Burns
• Known Unknown (Kara Oehler)
• Julia Yezbick
• Robert Gerard Pietrusko
• Kyle Parry
• Society for Receipt Printer Reincarnation (Joseph Bergen)
• Joana Pimenta (scroll to "Augmented Harvard")
• Victor Ban
• Peter Galison

Recommended Readings

• Digital Humanities 2.0 Manifesto
• Digital Humanities 2.0: A Report on Knowledge

Relevant Models

• extraMUROS
• Sensate
• Zeega
• Media Archaeology of Place
• The Mixed-Reality City

Related Harvard Projects/Initiatives

• Critical Media Practice
• Ethnography Lab
• Film Study Center
• Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments
• Woodberry Poetry Room
• Mahindra Humanities Center
• Center for Geographic Analysis
• The Laboratory at Harvard

Other Projects

• Todd Presner :: Hypercities
• Chris Johanson :: Experiential Classics
• Timothy Lenoir :: Mouse Site
• Tara McPherson :: Vectors Journal
• Richard White and John Christensen :: The Spatial History Project
• Blast Theory
• Stanford Humanities Lab :: Life Squared
• Dan Edelstein :: Mapping the Republic of Letters
• Johanna Drucker :: Graphesis
• Marsha Kinder :: The Labyrinth Project
• Jerome McGann :: Making NINES
• Bruce Sterling :: Dead Media Project
• Diane Favro :: Digital Roman Forum

Other Centers

• Center for Digital Humanities at UCLA
• Center for History and New Media at George Mason
• Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design
• Design | Media | Arts at UCLA