Distributed Blackness

In his critically acclaimed new book, Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (2020, New York University Press), Dr. Andre Brock Jr, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, positions Blackness at the very centre of Internet culture. In so doing, Brock uncovers the complex ways that race and racism, but also joy and humour, have always shaped how digital technologies are designed, used, depicted, and envisioned. In this episode, Sara chats with Dr. Brock about his important new book, his methodologically ground-breaking framework for researching technology and society, and his ongoing work on race, identity, libidinal economy, and social connection on (and beyond) Black Twitter. 

Type of research discussed in today’s episode: a deeply interdisciplinary combination of critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, science and technology studies, and historical research.

Keywords for today’s episode: Black Twitter, Black informational identity, libidinal economy, cultural commonplaces, ratchetry, racism, respectability, technoculture. 

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