race

HASTAC isn't a political organization. It's a virtual network dedicated to participatory learning and a humanistic creativity and critique and development of technology, always with attention to and concern for the social implications of the technologies we develop and use. However, Cat in the Stack usually offers one "frivolous" blog every two weeks or so, just to break up the pace, and this time, instead of frivolous, I'm going with political. I won't make it a habit, and no one wants HASTAC to be a political forum--there are many other places for that. All that said, today, as Barak Obama makes history with the Democratic Party nomination I offer some personal reflections on feminism in the hour of Obama. Yes we can! And, as a "new media" bonus, a url for the most delightful adorable compilation of "Lisa Simpson: Feminist Hero."

 

Oliver Wang and Mark Anthony Neal: CULTURAL CRITICISM 2.0 “How Do You Filter the Infinite?”

I’m sitting in Franklin Center 240 LiveBlogging a conversation between two of our smartest cultural critics, Oliver Wang and Mark Anthony Neal. As background, check out these great blogs by Wang and Neal

“How Do You Filter the Infinite?”

I’m sitting in Franklin Center 240 LiveBlogging a conversation between two of our smartest cultural critics, Oliver Wang and Mark Anthony Neal. The topic of the conversation is soul music, "blue-eyed soul," race and popular music, and what it means to be a cultural critic on the internet . . where anything you write on the internet "never, ever goes away . . . "

 

Register closes on April 15 for a fantastic conference hosted by the University of Maryland on "Digital Diasporas," May 1-3, 2008. Here's the conference url: http://www.mith2.umd.edu/diaspora2008/

Am I a hopeless optimist? Is the era of 'bad science' finally turning to one where sane, thoughtful, even visionary generalizations are flowing from all of the great computational findings that should make this one of humanity's great intellectual eras? If only our dopey prejudices didn't get in the way. . .