Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Prison-Televisual Complex, Allison Page, Laurie Ouellette

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

In 2016, the A&E cable network partnered with the Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana, to incarcerate seven volunteers as undercover prisoners for two months. This article takes the reality television franchise 60 Days In as a case study for analyzing the convergence of prison and television, and the rise of what we call the prison-televisual complex in the United States, which denotes the imbrication of the prison system with the television industry, not simply television as an ideological apparatus. 60 Days In represents an entanglement between punishment and the culture industries, whereby carceral logics flow into the business and …

Rhetorical Agency In Algorithm-Centered Digital Activity: Methods For Tracing Agency In Online Research, Daniel L. Hocutt

English Theses & Dissertations

Contemporary scholars in rhetoric studies and technical communication have theorized rhetorical agency as engaging human and nonhuman actors in online spaces. One such space, where the work of scholarship, teaching, and technical communication practice intersect, is online research. In online research interfaces, scholars and students alike conduct research; scholars teach and students learn the online research process toward contributing knowledge; and technical communicators design and test meaningful user experiences in these interfaces.

However, the field offers few comprehensive methodologies for studying the emergence of rhetorical agency in online search environments, where the activities of technologies, humans, corporations, and environments coalesce. …

Harbored: Like Museums, Videogames Aren't Neutral, Stephanie Hawthorne

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The following is comprised of: (1) an analysis of scholarship and contemporary works regarding videogames and museums that demonstrate the theory and method behind this project, (2) research regarding an historic maritime event that will serve as the subject matter for the proposed videogame, and (3) a conclusion that summarizes the game design. The historical research at the heart of this project surrounds the SS Quanza, a steamship that in September of 1940 carried Jewish refugees from Portugal to the US and Mexico only to be faced with the possibility of a return trip to Nazi Europe. Elevating the voices …

The Affective Politics Of Twitter, Johnathan C. Flowers

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Given the increasing encroachment of Twitter into offline experience, it has become necessary to look beyond the formation of identity in online spaces to the ways in which identities surface through the formation of affective communities organized through the use of technocultural assemblages, or the platforms, algorithms, and digital networks through which affect circulates in an online space. This essay focuses on the microblogging website Twitter as one such technocultural assemblage whose hashtag functionality allows for the circulation of affect among bodies which “surface” within the affective communities organized on Twitter through their alignment with and orientation by hashtags which …

Difference Between Algorithmic Processing And The Process Of Lifeworld (Lebenswelt), Domenico Schneider

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The following article compares the temporality of the life-world with the digital processing. The temporality of the life-world is determined to be stretched and spontaneous. The temporality of the digital is given by discrete step-by-step points of time. Most ethical issues can be traced back to a mismatch of these two ways of processing. This creates a foundation for the ethics of the digital processing. Methodologically, phenomenological considerations are merged with media-philosophical considerations in the article.

Rethinking Algorithmic Bias Through Phenomenology And Pragmatism, Johnathan C. Flowers

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

In 2017, Amazon discontinued an attempt at developing a hiring algorithm which would enable the company to streamline its hiring processes due to apparent gender discrimination. Specifically, the algorithm, trained on over a decade’s worth of resumes submitted to Amazon, learned to penalize applications that contained references to women, that indicated graduation from all women’s colleges, or otherwise indicated that an applicant was not male. Amazon’s algorithm took up the history of Amazon’s applicant pool and integrated it into its present “problematic situation,” for the purposes of future action. Consequently, Amazon declared the project a failure: even after attempting to …

The Incorporation Of Moral-Development Language For Machine-Learning Companion Robots, Patrick Lee Plaisance, Joe Cruz

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Among the ongoing debates over ethical implications of artificial-intelligence development and applications, AI morality, and the nature of autonomous agency for robots, how to think about the moral assumptions implicit in machine-learning capacities for so-called companion robots is arguably an urgent one. This project links the development of machine-learning algorithmic design with moral-development theory language. It argues that robotic algorithmic responses should incorporate language linked to higher-order moral reasoning, reflecting notions of universal respect, community obligation and justice to encourage similar deliberation among human subjects.

Human Supremacy As Posthuman Risk, Daniel Estrada

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Human supremacy is the widely held view that human interests ought to be privileged over other interests as a matter of public policy. Posthumanism is an historical and cultural situation characterized by a critical reevaluation of anthropocentrist theory and practice. This paper draws on Rosi Braidotti’s critical posthumanism and the critique of ideal theory in Charles Mills and Serene Khader to address the use of human supremacist rhetoric in AI ethics and policy discussions, particularly in the work of Joanna Bryson. This analysis leads to identifying a set of risks posed by human supremacist policy in a posthuman context, specifically …

A Ulysses Pact With Artificial Systems. How To Deliberately Change The Objective Spirit With Cultured Ai, Bruno Gransche

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The article introduces a concept of cultured technology, i.e. intelligent systems capable of interacting with humans and showing (or simulating) manners, of following customs and of socio-sensitive considerations. Such technologies might, when deployed on a large scale, influence and change the realm of human customs, traditions, standards of acceptable behavior, etc. This realm is known as the "objective spirit" (Hegel), which usually is thought of as being historically changing but not subject to deliberate human design. The article investigates the question of whether the purposeful design of interactive technologies (as cultured technologies) could enable us to shape modes of …

The Right To Human Intervention: Law, Ethics And Artificial Intelligence, Maria Kanellopoulou - Botti, Fereniki Panagopoulou, Maria Nikita, Anastasia Michailaki

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The paper analyses the new right of human intervention in use of information technology, automatization processes and advanced algorithms in individual decision-making activities. Art. 22 of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides that the data subject has the right not to be subject to a fully automated decision on matters of legal importance to her interests, hence the data subject has a right to human intervention in this kind of decisions.

Must Stay Woke: Black Celebrity Voices Of Dissent In The Post Post-Racial Era, Lily Kunda

Institute for the Humanities Theses

In today’s racially charged climate there is an expectation that black celebrities cry out #BlackLivesMatter, get on the field to #TakeAKnee and be #UnapologeticallyBlack whenever they are in the spotlight. This climate transcends what was once seen as a post-racial America— a time where the media portrayed race as no longer being an issue— and encourages black celebrities to address racism. Prior research on black celebrities by Sarah J. Jackson, Ellis Cashmore, bell hooks, James Baldwin and others acknowledges the historical burden placed on black celebrities to publicly discuss racism and represent blackness in order to challenge dominant narratives. Today, …

Speaking For The Grotesques: The Historical Articulation Of The Disabled Body In The Archive, Violet Marie Strawderman

English Theses & Dissertations

This project examines the ways in which the disabled body is constructed and produced in larger society, via the creation of and interaction with (and through) the archive. The archive, for the purposes of this project, is defined by scholars such as Jacques Derrida and Carolyn Steedman. It is a place where information is stored and documented, but through this process, history and power are also created and maintained. In order to properly examine the ways the archive helps shape the understanding of the disabled body and experience, I use three case studies: Richard III, Caliban and Joseph Merrick. Each …

Twisting Facts To Suit Theories: In Defense Of Sherlock, Alicia Defonzo

English Faculty Publications

[First paragraph]

In August 2011, the Albemarle County school board unanimously voted to remove Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet from the sixth-grade curricula. Over twenty students beseeched the board for the book to remain, and they were ignored. Teachers were afraid to voice their opinions on the matter. The novel has not been taught since in Albemarle, on any grade level, nor any other Sherlock Holmes texts.

Rhetorics Of Functionally Applicative Game Design: Designing And Testing The Project Management Game Scrummage, Matthew Carson Beale

English Theses & Dissertations

In this project, I designed and tested Scrummage, a tabletop game to teach the scrum project management system to undergraduate students. The project grew from the gaps in both academic literature and pedagogical tools for project management and collaboration in the technical communication classroom. Although the field of technical communication places significance on project management, research shows that many employers find the project management skills and knowledge of recent graduates to be under-developed. Situated in the fields of game design, game studies, project management, and technical communication, this project asks how we as educators can improve the project management learning …

#Metoo And The Politics Of Collective Healing: Emotional Connection As Contestation, Allison Page, Jacquelyn Arcy

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Participants in the #MeToo movement on Twitter expressed emotions like rage, pain, and solidarity in their personal accounts of sexual violence. This article explores the digital circulation of these affects and considers how the outpouring of tweets about sexual harassment and abuse contribute to a feminist politics centered on collective healing. The particular emotions expressed in the #MeToo Twitter archive subvert the logics of quantification and visibility that undergird popular feminism and the attention economy, and produce an affective excess that works toward movement founder Tarana Burke’s original project of “mass healing.” At a moment wherein popular feminism emphasizes individual …