Week 26: 24-30 June 2019

Another very intensive week, during which I had two presentations and handed in my essay concept for Media Activism.

On Monday I presented in Space and Place (in my refurbished studio) on how the Street is divided between traffic participants:

And on Thursday I presented in Immersive Technologies, on sex robots and remote controlled bodies:

On Tuesday we had John Postill as a guest lecturer in Media Activism – we had prepared questions that he answered. I’m currently reading his latest book The Rise of Nerd Politics, which is highly relevant for me.

The mangaka I emailed replied and offered to spread the link to my otaku study on his quite well-followed Twitter account. I have yet to reply (I want to improve the homepage a bit first).

I’m near the end of the Japanese translation of my machinima – the Lang-8 users provide excellent corrections. I emailed one of the authors that I quote to ask him for the exact quotes in Japanese, but he hasn’t replied and I want his book anyway, so I managed to find a seller on Amazon that ships internationally. ETA mid July!

On Friday I did half a Critical Mass with S. It was somehow more boring than usual – less music, less lights, but lots of yelling car drivers. We went to have Vietnamese food on the street instead, and my classmate J happened to pass by with his friend.

On Saturday I mounted the last wall skirtings in the hallway and today I was just at home, avoiding the heat outside (39 degrees!) and reading in the sofa. It’s such a treat to return to Michael Fisch’s ethnography on trains in Tokyo, since I’m not reading it for any class. It’s fantastic.

We finished When They See Us on Netflix plus Oprah’s one-hour special. Horrible in so many ways, but brilliantly executed by Ava DuVernay and the actors. Hopefully the series can lead to actual change, as extraordinary culture has the power to do every now and then.

Readings

Media Activism

Unit 7: Digital Activism

• Postill, J. 2018. “Data Activism.” In The Rise of Nerd Politics: Digital Activism and Political Change. Chapter 3: 58–88. London: Pluto Press.

Space and Place

Unit 8: Geographic Information System (GIS) & Multimedia Mapping

• Gibson, Chris, Chris Brennan-Horley, and Andrew Warren. 2010. “Geographic Information Technologies for cultural research: Cultural mapping and the prospects of colliding epistemologies.” In Cultural Trends 19: 325–348. Routledge.

Immersive Technologies

Unit 7A: Virtual Embodiment and the VR Self

• Boellstorff, Tom. 2011. “Virtuality. Placing the Virtual Body: Avatar, Chora, Cypherg.” In Frances E. Mascia-Lees (ed.): A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. Chapter 29: 504–520. Wiley-Blackwell.

Extra

• Fisch, Michael. 2018. “Operation without Capacity.” Chapter 3: 79–120. In An Anthropology of the Machine. Tokyo’s Commuter Train Network. The University of Chicago Press.

Japanese

Apps

• Memrise: 34,200 (kanji, mid 小5)
• Nextbook 漢字: 小2 level 42–57

Podcast

• サブカル 008–011

Other

Articles

• The Economist:
  • Briefing: How Brexit made Britain a country of Remainers and Leavers
  • How 25 countries in the Americas could end up allowing gay marriage
  • Killings and claims of an attempted putsch rock Ethiopia
  • Bartleby: The American exception
  • Leader: As America and Iran inch closer to war, new talks are needed
• Wired:
  • Minnesota Cop Awarded $585K After Colleagues Snooped on Her DMV Data
  • John McAfee Fled to Belize, But He Couldn’t Escape Himself (2012 – amazing read!)
  • Shopkeepers Around the World, Photographed With Their Wares
• Ny Teknik/Simon Campanello: ”Varför är det säkrare att ladda ned en bok från Pirate Bay än att köpa den?”

Mini-series

• Ava DuVernay: When They See Us (2019, 4h 56 min)