September 17, 2018
Launch of Monday Night Seminars new theme:
@TheMechanicalBro #FolkloreOfTechnology
September 21, 2018
McLuhan Symposium
Celebrating the inclusion of Marshall McLuhan: The Archives of the Future in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
Co-sponsored with McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (more details announced in July)
March 14, 2019
Paula McDowell (NYU): Marshall McLuhan's Eighteenth Century
Victoria College Chapel (91 Charles St. W.) Room VC213, 4:15 pm
Co-sponsored by the Toronto Centre for the Book, the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, and the Friends of the Victoria University Library
March 5, 2018
LOGOUT! Symposium
Disrupting the disruptors: U of T event looks at worker resistance in companies like Uber, Amazon
November 2, 2017
Marshall McLuhan: The Archives of the Future
Famed U of T Professor Marshall McLuhan’s library given United Nations heritage designation
July 21, 2017
Marshall McLuhan's 106th Birthday
Google honoured him with his own Doodle
September 20, 2017
MsUnderstanding Media + New Director
U of T's McLuhan Centre Takes Critical Look at Technology Through the Lens of Feminism
For Whom the Medium Matters III
April 27, 2018
The third annual event brought together local scholars, graduate students, and field-defining media theorists who build on the Toronto School tradition. These are scholars "for whom" the medium is central to their work and address "for whom" the medium comes to matter in different ways.
Working at the intersection of culture and technology, new research was shared by Keynotes: Garnet Hertz and Alessandra Renzi with Speakers: Philippe Theophanidis, Victoria Tahmasebi, Sara Grimes, Cait McKinney, Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, Tero Karppi, Nicole Cohen, Natalie Coulter, Felan Parker, Helene Mialet and Sarah Sharma.
For Whom the Medium Matters II
April 21, 2017
Keynotes:
Kim Sawchuk (Concordia) +
Jennifer Pybus (University of the Arts, London)
Pecha Kucha:
Alex Boutros Alt.Health/Zombies
Kenzie Burchell Affordances, Apparatus, Assemblage
Lily Cho Mass Capture + Microfilm
T.L. Cowan Transmedial Drag
Alessandro Delfanti You’re Deactivated
Gary Genosko Undisciplinable
Alex Hanna Protest Data Futures
Mark Hayward Glog, or Technophany
Ian Milligan The Infinite Archive
David Nieborg The Platform is the Message
Michael Petit The Attraction of Distraction
Lilian Radovac Outside the Box
Jasmine Rault Codes/Screens/Filters
Sarah Sharma sExit Strategies
For Whom the Medium Matters
April 16, 2016
Keynotes:
Sarah Banet-Weiser (University of Southern California)
Radha Hegde (NYU)
Jody Berland (York University
Pecha Kucha:
Tracey Bowen Gentrifitti
Michael Darroch Detroit Windsor
Greg de Peuter Platforms for the Precariat
Mark Hayward Banking as Media Industry
Andrew Herman Cats that Look Like Kittler
Ganaele Langlois Distributed Subjectives
Patrick Keilty Desire by Design
Rhonda McEwen Tactile Interfaces
Irina D. Mihalache The Chef's Apron as Media
Judith Nicholson Smart Guns, Dumb Users?
Jeremy Packer Media's Governmental A Priori
David Phillips Against Privacy
Leslie Regan Shade Equality Matters
Elise Thorburn Carceral Infrastructures
LOG OUT!
Worker Resistance Within and Against the Platform Economy
March 6, 2018
A full day conference held at the Faculty of Information and co-sponsored by the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology and the University of Toronto Mississauga.
The conference focused on the role of digital technologies in re-organizing labour processes and emerging forms of worker resistance. Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon, Instagram, and many other platform-based corporations are experiencing worker refusal, unionization, organizing and struggle. While technology is used to intensify and subdue labour, it is also constantly met with resistance from workers who challenge the casualized and precarious work conditions of the digital economy.
PROGRAM
OPENING REMARKS
Sarah Sharma [McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology] +
Alessandro Delfanti [University of Toronto]
The Fairwork Foundation: Strategies for Online Platform Work
Jamie Woodcock [University of Oxford]
Platform Organizing: Digital Tools for Labour Recomposition
Enda Brophy + Seamus Grayer [Simon Fraser University)]
The Warehouse without Walls: A Workers’ Inquiry at Deliveroo
Callum Cant [University of West London]
When the Crowd Resists: mTurk Worker Struggles Against Amazon
Kristy Milland [McMaster University and TurkerNation]
Labour Against the Machine. Control and Conflict in E-commerce Warehouses
Alessandro Delfanti [University of Toronto]
“Can A Single Spark Start a Prairie Fire?” Connect the Dots in the Chinese Platform
Workers’ Tactics of Resistance
Julie Yujie Chen [University of Leicester]
Influencer Comment Pods as Co-operative Algorithm Hacking: Resistance Within
and Against Instagram Platform Labour
Victoria O’Meara [Western University]
Workers’ Inquiry among Silicon Valley Tech Workers
Tech Workers Coalition
Fighting White Power with Worker Power: Organizing and Visibility in Silicon Valley
Tamara Kneese [University of San Francisco]
FINAL ROUNDTABLE
Nick Dyer-Witheford [Western University]
Alessandro Gandini [King’s College]
Lilly Irani [University of California San Diego]
Kristy Milland [McMaster University and TurkerNation]
Moderator: Greig de Peuter [Wilfrid Laurier University]
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Brett Caraway, Nicole Cohen, Alessandro Delfanti, Karen McEwen, David Nieborg,
Rianka Singh + Madison Trusolino
PRESS
Disrupting the disruptors: U of T event looks at worker resistance in companies
like Uber, Amazon UofT News (March 2018)