Technosemiotics took place on October 26, 2018 in West Hall. 

 

About: How should we understand the vast and often unexpected entanglements of media technologies in social and cultural life? This roundtable draws into dialogue linguistic and semiotic anthropology, media ethnography and archaeology, and science and technology studies. From syllabic typewriters to sound recorders, from postwar Japan and America to contemporary Punjab and Nigeria, we examine how human, media, and machine do not simply “interact” but variably combine and sometimes co-constitute each other with far-reaching effects. How do we take seriously the materiality of media and their infrastructures without neglecting cultural significance or resorting to species of determinism? In what ways are we helped or hindered by concepts such as “interface,” “indexicality,” and “technique,” and amalgams like “sociotechnical” and, indeed, “technosemiotic”? 

 

Participants:

Padma Chirumamilla
Doctoral Candidate, School of Information
University of Michigan

Matthew Hull
Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Michigan

Miyako Inoue
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Stanford University

Brian Larkin
Professor of Anthropology
Barnard College, Columbia University

Michael Lempert
Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Michigan

Nishita Trisal
Doctoral Candidate, Anthropology
University of Michigan