Marianne van den Boomen Lecture 2016

On Thursday, 24 November at 17.00 the first annual Marianne van den Boomen Lecture will be held at Utrecht University in the Auditorium of University Hall (Academiegebouw), followed by drinks. The lecture will be given by Professor Leah Lievrouw (UCLA) about “Algorithms and Activism: Resistance in the Age of Data”.

Marianne van den Boomen

Dr. Marianne van den Boomen (1955-2014)

This lecture series is dedicated to the memory of Marianne van den Boomen (1955-2014), a Dutch internet and digital media activist who wrote on information technologies from as early as 1984. Having worked for two decades as a journalist and online editor, participating in numerous initiatives in the field of digital media, she started lecturing at Utrecht University in 2003, where she also wrote her PhD on material metaphors in new media. Even though her disease made it especially challenging to continue, she completed and successfully defended her thesis in 2014, just a few months before she passed away.

Societal and Cultural Impacts of Digital Media

The lecture series aims to study societal and cultural impacts of digital media. Every year a leading scholar in the field is invited to address the changes, opportunities, and challenges brought about by the mediation and datafication of everyday life, and to discuss the consequences these processes have for institutions, inclusion/exclusion politics in the public sphere, citizenship, and for our private lives.

Professor Leah Lievrouw

Professor Leah Lievrouw

We are extremely pleased to announce that the first Marianne van den Boomen Lecture will be given by Professor Leah Lievrouw, UCLA, Department of Information Studies. In her talk, titled “Algorithms and Activism: Resistance in the Age of Data”, Lievrouw will address “emerging forms of data-focused engagement and resistance in the context of algorithmic media, drawing examples from data activism, design activism, data journalism, civic hacking and community informatics, and activist projects and movements like Anonymous, Black Lives Matter, and the Edward Snowden and Aaron Swartz cases, among others.” Please see the abstract (pdf) of the talk.

Organization

The Marianne van den Boomen Lecture is organised by the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University in cooperation with SURFnet and UU’s research focus area Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights.