The History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series brings to campus leading humanities scholars working on issues of media transition and technological emergence. The series promotes new, interdisciplinary approaches to questions about the uses, meanings, causes, and effects of rapid or dramatic shifts in techno-infrastructure, information management, and forms of mediated expression.
The History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series is produced by the Berkeley Center for New Media with support from CITRIS (The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society).
Lisa Nakamura is a Professor in the Department of American Cultures and the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interrogates both the performance of and assumptions embedded in representations of race and ethnicity in digital media, particularly within gaming cultures. These issues are at the forefront of her books “Race After the Internet” (co-edited with Peter Chow-White), “Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet,” and “Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet.” Nakamura is currently investigating transnational racialized labor and avatarial capital in a “postracial” world through the lens of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.