WATCH: Gucci bewitches crowd with heads and snakes at Milan’s Fashion Week https://t.co/SMdNO4UvwF pic.twitter.com/OIoaOH9VS9 — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) February 22, 2018 Two days ago, Gucci’s creative director staged a visual interpretation of Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto.” As I looked at the weird and wonderful designs making their way down the runway, I thought of Haraway’s metaphorical cyborg, which is at the same time, “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of…

How might the use of technology contribute to students’ and educators’ understanding of the extent to which personal and cultural identity is woven through “literate” practices? How might educators use this knowledge to develop practices which benefit international students? These questions are explored in Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times, in which Patrick W. Berry,  Gail E. Hawisher, and Cynthia L. Selfe, seek a broader understanding of the impact of digital literacies…

The rise of Anonymous is chronicled by the movie, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (2012), in which self-described nerds become a force for change whilst living in in their parents’ basements. This loosely-bound movement emerged in a way which is contrary to the social media included in this week’s readings. For instance, Dana Michele Boyd’s article discusses the idea that “to exist in mediated contexts, people must engage in explicit…

Michael Crichton’s Prey incorporates concepts of computer programming, nano technology and genetic engineering to effectively send a warning about the dangers of emergent group behavior: a process which can develop from individually-programmed “agents.” I was reminded of this book as I read Katherine Hayles’ Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, in which she includes her interpretation of the development of cybernetics. When explaining third wave cybernetics, a quality that Hayles highlights…