Download or read book Afterlives of Data written by Mary F.E. Ebeling and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-06-13 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: data lives on -- Tracing life through data -- Building trust where data divides -- Collecting life -- Mobilizing alternative data -- On scoring life -- Data visibilities -- Epilogue: afterlife.
Download or read book American Afterlives written by Shannon Lee Dawdy and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mesmerizing trip across America to investigate the changing face of death in contemporary life Death in the United States is undergoing a quiet revolution. You can have your body frozen, dissected, composted, dissolved, or tanned. Your family can incorporate your remains into jewelry, shotgun shells, paperweights, and artwork. Cremations have more than doubled, and DIY home funerals and green burials are on the rise. American Afterlives is Shannon Lee Dawdy’s lyrical and compassionate account of changing death practices in America as people face their own mortality and search for a different kind of afterlife. As an anthropologist and archaeologist, Dawdy knows that how a society treats its dead yields powerful clues about its beliefs and values. As someone who has experienced loss herself, she knows there is no way to tell this story without also reexamining her own views about death and dying. In this meditative and gently humorous book, Dawdy embarks on a transformative journey across the United States, talking to funeral directors, death-care entrepreneurs, designers, cemetery owners, death doulas, and ordinary people from all walks of life. What she discovers is that, by reinventing death, Americans are reworking their ideas about personhood, ritual, and connection across generations. She also confronts the seeming contradiction that American death is becoming at the same time more materialistic and more spiritual. Written in conjunction with a documentary film project, American Afterlives features images by cinematographer Daniel Zox that provide their own testament to our rapidly changing attitudes toward death and the afterlife.
Download or read book The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives written by Debra J. Bassett and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp ‘accidentally’ enable and nurture the creation of digital afterlives, and, importantly, the effect this digital inheritance has on the bereaved. Debra J. Bassett offers a holistic exploration of this phenomenon and presents qualitative data from three groups of participants: service providers, digital creators, and digital inheritors. For the bereaved, loss of data, lack of control, or digital obsolescence can lead to a second loss, and this book introduces the theory of ‘the fear of second loss’. Bassett argues that digital afterlives challenge and disrupt existing grief theories, suggesting how these theories might be expanded to accommodate digital inheritance. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to sociologists, cyber psychologists, philosophers, death scholars, and grief counsellors. But Bassett’s book can also be seen as a canary in the coal mine for the ‘intentional’ Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI) and their race to monetise the dead. This book provides an understanding of the profound effects uncontrollable timed posthumous messages and the creation of thanabots could have on the bereaved, and Bassett’s conception of a Digital Do Not Reanimate (DDNR) order and a voluntary code of conduct could provide a useful addition to the DAI. Even in the digital societies of the West, we are far from immortal, but perhaps the question we really need to ask is: who wants to live forever?
Download or read book Online Afterlives written by Davide Sisto and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How digital technology—from Facebook tributes to QR codes on headstones—is changing our relationship to death. Facebook is the biggest cemetery in the world, with countless acres of cyberspace occupied by snapshots, videos, thoughts, and memories of people who have shared their last status updates. Modern society usually hides death from sight, as if it were a character flaw and not an ineluctable fact. But on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet, we can't avoid death; digital ghosts—electronic traces of the dead—appear at our click or touch. On the Internet at least, death has once again become a topic for public discourse. In Online Afterlives, Davide Sisto considers how digital technology is changing our relationship to death. Sisto describes the various modes of digital survival after biological death—including Facebook tributes, chatbots programmed to speak in the voice of a dead person, and QR codes on headstones—and discusses their philosophical ramifications. Sisto reports on such phenomena as the Tweet Hereafter, a website that collects people's last tweets; the intimacy of sending a WhatsApp message to someone who has died; and digital cremation, the deactivation of a dead person's account. Because we can mingle with the dead online almost as we mingle with the living, he warns, we may find it difficult to distinguish communication at a distance from communication with the dead. The digital afterlife has restored the communal dimension of death, rescuing both mourners and the mourned from social isolation. A society willing to engage with death and mortality, Sisto argues, is a more balanced and mature society.
Download or read book After Lives written by John Casey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of ideas of life after death ranging from ancient times to the present and from religion and philosophy to literature and science.
Download or read book The Afterlives written by Thomas Pierce and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ridiculously good” (The New York Times) author Thomas Pierce's debut novel is a funny, poignant love story that answers the question: What happens after we die? (Lots of stuff, it turns out). Jim Byrd died. Technically. For a few minutes. The diagnosis: heart attack at age thirty. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights, or angels, Jim wonders what--if anything--awaits us on the other side. Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead. As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love. Funny, fiercely original, and gracefully moving, The Afterlives will haunt you. In a good way.
Download or read book May 68 and Its Afterlives written by Kristin Ross and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During May 1968, students and workers in France united in the biggest strike and the largest mass movement in French history. Protesting capitalism, American imperialism, and Gaullism, 9 million people from all walks of life, from shipbuilders to department store clerks, stopped working. The nation was paralyzed—no sector of the workplace was untouched. Yet, just thirty years later, the mainstream image of May '68 in France has become that of a mellow youth revolt, a cultural transformation stripped of its violence and profound sociopolitical implications. Kristin Ross shows how the current official memory of May '68 came to serve a political agenda antithetical to the movement's aspirations. She examines the roles played by sociologists, repentant ex-student leaders, and the mainstream media in giving what was a political event a predominantly cultural and ethical meaning. Recovering the political language of May '68 through the tracts, pamphlets, and documentary film footage of the era, Ross reveals how the original movement, concerned above all with the question of equality, gained a new and counterfeit history, one that erased police violence and the deaths of participants, removed workers from the picture, and eliminated all traces of anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, and the influences of Algeria and Vietnam. May '68 and Its Afterlives is especially timely given the rise of a new mass political movement opposing global capitalism, from labor strikes and anti-McDonald's protests in France to the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle.
Download or read book After the Internet written by Ramesh Srinivasan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations, and concern that the internet has heightened rather than combated various forms of political and social inequality, it is time we ask: what comes after a broken internet? Ramesh Srinivasan and Adam Fish reimagine the internet from the perspective of grassroots activists and citizens on the margins of political and economic power. They explore how the fragments of the existing internet are being utilized - alongside a range of peoples, places, and laws - to make change possible. From indigenous and non-Western communities and activists in Tahrir Square, to imprisoned hackers and whistleblowers, this book illustrates how post-digital cultures are changing the internet as we know it - from a system which is increasingly centralized, commodified, and "personalized," into something more in line with its original spirit: autonomous, creative, subversive. The book looks past the limitations of the internet, reconceptualizing network technology in relation to principles of justice and equality. Srinivasan and Fish advocate for an internet that blends the local concerns of grassroots communities and activists with the need to achieve scalable change and transformation.
Download or read book Sum written by David Eagleman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.
Download or read book Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt written by Sara Salem and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through Gramsci and Fanon, Salem centers anticolonial politics by exploring the connections between Egypt's moment of decolonization and the 2011 revolution.
Download or read book The Afterlife of Data written by Carl Öhman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In recent years, more and more of our lives takes place online. But what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails of data we leave behind, much of "who we are" can be reconstructed-even after our death. Sooner than we think, the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook, and in time, AI technology will allow us to "interact" with the departed. In this short, thought-provoking book, Carl Öhman asks us to consider what happens to our data after we pass away. How do we decide what data should be preserved? What sorts of ethical issues does it raise? We live in what Öhman calls the post-mortal condition, one in which the dead and the living coexist online through digital remains. Examining government digital heritage committees, public archives, NGOs, museums, and commercial institutions, Öhman analyzes various forms of data preservation and digital reanimation, ultimately calling for us, as a society, to acknowledge and to engage creatively with our condition. He calls for us to reevaluate the relationship between the living and the dead, and to work together to create a shared ethics of preservation. This isn't just the duty of our digital overlords. These are our lives, our deaths, and it is time we think seriously about how we want our data to be treated"--
Download or read book Afterlives written by Abdulrazak Gurnah and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 'Riveting and heartbreaking ... A compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure' Maaza Mengiste, Guardian 'A brilliant and important book for our times, by a wondrous writer' Philippe Sands, New Statesman, Books of the Year _______________ While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops. After years away, fighting in a war against his own people, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away. Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security – and the love of the beautiful Afiya. As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away... _______________ 'One of the world's most prominent postcolonial writers ... He has consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism in East Africa and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals' Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee 'In book after book, he guides us through seismic historic moments and devastating societal ruptures while gently outlining what it is that keeps those families, friendships and loving spaces intact, if not fully whole' Maaza Mengiste 'Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair ... One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment' The Times
Download or read book Afterlives of Augustus AD 14 2014 written by Penelope J. Goodman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores two thousand years of radically changing opinions on the emperor Augustus, and what they reveal about the historical individual.
Download or read book MOOCs and Their Afterlives written by Elizabeth Losh and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trio of headlines in the Chronicle of Higher Education seem to say it all: in 2013, “A Bold Move Toward MOOCs Sends Shock Waves;” in 2014, “Doubts About MOOCs Continue to Rise,” and in 2015, “The MOOC Hype Fades.” At the beginning of the 2010s, MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, seemed poised to completely revolutionize higher education. But now, just a few years into the revolution, educators’ enthusiasm seems to have cooled. As advocates and critics try to make sense of the rise and fall of these courses, both groups are united by one question: Where do we go from here? Elizabeth Losh has gathered experts from across disciplines—education, rhetoric, philosophy, literary studies, history, computer science, and journalism—to tease out lessons and chart a course into the future of open, online education. Instructors talk about what worked and what didn’t. Students share their experiences as participants. And scholars consider the ethics of this education. The collection goes beyond MOOCs to cover variants such as hybrid or blended courses, SPOCs (Small Personalized Online Courses), and DOCCs (Distributed Open Collaborative Course). Together, these essays provide a unique, even-handed look at the MOOC movement and will serve as a thoughtful guide to those shaping the next steps for open education.
Download or read book Liberal Terror written by Brad Evans and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Security is meant to make the world safer. Yet despite living in the most secure of times, we see endangerment everywhere. Whether it is the threat of another devastating terrorist attacks, a natural disaster or unexpected catastrophe, anxieties and fears define the global political age. While liberal governments and security agencies have responded by advocating a new catastrophic topography of interconnected planetary endangerment, our desire to securitize everything has rendered all things potentially terrifying. This is the fateful paradox of contemporary liberal rule. The more we seek to secure, the more our imaginaries of threat proliferate. Nothing can therefore be left to chance. For everything has the potential to be truly catastrophic. Such is the emerging state of terror normality we find ourselves in today. This illuminating book by Brad Evans provides a critical evaluation of the wide ranging terrors which are deemed threatening to advanced liberal societies. Moving beyond the assumption that liberalism is integral to the realisation of perpetual peace, human progress, and political emancipation on a planetary scale, it exposes how liberal security regimes are shaped by a complex life-centric rationality which directly undermines any claims to universal justice and co-habitation. Through an incisive and philosophically enriched critique of the contemporary liberal practices of making life more secure, Evans forces us to confront the question of what it means to live politically as we navigate through the dangerous uncertainty of the 21st Century.
Download or read book Afterlives of Confinement written by Susana Draper and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2015-08-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the age of dictatorships, Latin American prisons became a symbol for the vanquishing of political opponents, many of whom were never seen again. In the postdictatorship era of the 1990s, a number of these prisons were repurposed into shopping malls, museums, and memorials. Susana Draper uses the phenomenon of the "opening" of prisons and detention centers to begin a dialog on conceptualizations of democracy and freedom in post-dictatorship Latin America. Focusing on the Southern Cone nations of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, Draper examines key works in architecture, film, and literature to peel away the veiled continuity of dictatorial power structures in ensuing consumer cultures. The afterlife of prisons became an important tool in the "forgetting" of past politics, while also serving as a reminder to citizens of the liberties they now enjoyed. In Draper's analysis, these symbols led the populace to believe they had attained freedom, although they had only witnessed the veneer of democracy—in the ability to vote and consume. In selected literary works by Roberto Bola–o, Eleuterio Fernandez Huidoboro, and Diamela Eltit and films by Alejandro Agresti and Marco Bechis, Draper finds further evidence of the emptiness and melancholy of underachieved goals in the afterlife of dictatorships. The social changes that did not occur, the inability to effectively mourn the losses of a now-hidden past, the homogenizing effects of market economies, and a yearning for the promises of true freedom are thematic currents underlying much of these texts. Draper's study of the manipulation of culture and consumerism under the guise of democracy will have powerful implications not only for Latin Americanists but also for those studying neoliberal transformations globally.
Download or read book Performance and the Afterlives of Injustice written by Catherine Cole and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of state-perpetrated injustice, a façade of peace can suddenly give way, and in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, post-apartheid and postcolonial framings of change have exceeded their limits. Performance and the Afterlives of Injustice reveals how the voices and visions of artists can help us see what otherwise evades perception. Embodied performance in South Africa has particular potency because apartheid was so centrally focused on the body: classifying bodies into racial categories, legislating where certain bodies could move and which bathrooms and drinking fountains certain bodies could use, and how different bodies carried meaning. The book considers key works by contemporary performing artists Brett Bailey, Faustin Linyekula, Gregory Maqoma, Mamela Nyamza, Robyn Orlin, Jay Pather, and Sello Pesa, artists imagining new forms and helping audiences see the contemporary moment as it is: an important intervention in countries long predicated on denial. They are also helping to conjure, anticipate, and dream a world that is otherwise. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of African studies, black performance, dance studies, transitional justice, as well as theater and performance studies.
