Register now for the Dean's Lecture on Information + Society with Safiya Noble

Banner for Dean's Lecture on Information + Society with Safiya Noble, Nov 15

You are invited to an evening with acclaimed author and internet studies scholar Safiya Noble.

About the event

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and politics, and in the service of something -- a position, a profit motive, a means to an end. In this talk, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble will discuss her book, Algorithms of Oppression, and delve into issues ranging from marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search, to the profound power struggles that violate civil, human, and collective rights through AI and machine learning projects.

The lecture will be followed by a reception with light refreshments. Everyone is welcome.

About the speaker

Dr. Safiya Noble is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award, and author of the highly acclaimed Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press). She is an internet studies scholar and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Faculty Director of the Center on Race & Digital Justice and as the Co-Director of the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power at the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She and her work have been featured in Time, The Guardian, the BBC, CNN International, Wired, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among many others. Her talks and research focus on the ways that digital media impacts our lives and intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and technology. 


For more information on this Speaker please visit Pande Lecture Management.

Read Dr. Noble's work

The SFU community can read Safiya Noble's books by borrowing them from SFU Library.

You can also find her books in your public library, or through your local independent bookstore. 

About the moderator

Stephanie Dick is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She is a historian of science by training who focuses on the history of mathematics, computing, and artificial intelligence in particular. Her first book project, Making Up Minds, explores early attempts to reproduce human mathematical intelligence in computers and Stephanie tells this as a story about men who looked at computers and saw themselves – and the many histories that made that confounding recognition possible. In her second project, she is exploring the development and implementation of early law enforcement databanks in the 1960s, especially the New York State Identification and Intelligence System. She is now embarking on a large-scale collaborative research program called “Ritual and Algorithm” that explores entanglements between mathematical, psychological, and spiritual theories of the human mind in the 20th century. She is co-editor, with Janet Abbate of Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society, published with Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022. She is a co-investigator on Wendy Chun’s Data Fluencies Mellon Grant at the Digital Democracies Institute, and co-edits the “Mining the Past” column at the Harvard Data Science Review. She received her PhD in History of Science from Harvard University, and prior to joining the faculty at SFU, she was an Assistant Professor in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and she was a Junior Fellow with the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Speaker(s)
Safiya Noble
Date(s)
November 15
Time
6:30pm Pacific Time
Location
Rooms 1200-1500, SFU Segal Building, 500 Granville St
Registration information

Register for this event through Eventbrite.

Attendance Options: Join us at the in-person event or with the livestream. Please note that this event will be livestreamed, but it will not be recorded.
 
Ticket Holders: Doors open at 6:00pm. As this event is free, it is our policy to overbook. In case of a full program, your ticket reservation may not guarantee admission. We recommend you arrive early. 

Registration options

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Contact for further information
Please contact Chloe Riley at car11@sfu.ca

Safety and accessibility

COVID-19 Safety protocols: Masks are strongly recommended

  • All in-person attendees are strongly encouraged to wear masks at this event. Please stay home if you are feeling sick and join our livestream instead! 
  • We ask that you please be respectful and patient with staff, volunteers and fellow attendees and be mindful of others’ comfort levels.

Accessibility information

  • The Segal Graduate School of Business is located at 500 Granville St, and is a brief walk from both the Granville and Waterfront Skytrain stations, along with numerous bus stops. 
  • Limited bike racks are available out front, with others close by. Nearby paid parking is available at 443 Seymour St. Public parking is available at many locations near the Segal Building. Street parking is free after 10 p.m. The closest parking lot is at 400 West Cordova Street.
  • All floors and washrooms within SFU Segal are wheelchair accessible. The Segal building has all-gender washrooms on the main floor, SB 1540& SB 1640.
  • If you have any requests, concerns, or questions concerning accessibility at this event, please contact Silvana Martinez at psqevent@sfu.ca.

Sponsors

Generously funded by the Thakore Learning and Events Endowment.

Event partners

This event is co-sponsored by SFU Library, SFU Public Square, Capilano University Library, Douglas College Library, Kwantlen Polytechnic Library.