Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshops (RIW)

Organized by Traveling Theories Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop


Title: Indigenous communities and algorithmic systems
Speaker: Dipto Das, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Computer Science & Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.
Dipto Das is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Computer Science and the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Their research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) explores how sociotechnical systems facilitate sociopolitical discourse among diverse communities and how these platforms can be designed and governed to promote greater equity and fairness while accommodating differing and often conflicting norms and values. Their work examines how fairness in the downstream applications of algorithmic systems, particularly in the governance of online platforms within culturally diverse communities, is conceptualized and negotiated. Drawing from his research, Das will discuss the experiences of local and Indigenous communities with algorithmic systems in this talk.
Date: April 10th, 2025
TIme: 2: 30 pm - 4 :00 pm
Venue: Hybrid
North Quad 5450, University of Michigan.
Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/j/94307093919

Rummage is a Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop focused on the nexus of exhibition, collection, curation, display, and representation within museums and museum-adjacent spaces. The group’s name, rummage, evokes both a materiality and an intellectual practice characteristic of museum studies more broadly. On the one hand, rummaging has a tactile quality. It gestures to the human role in how objects are placed and misplaced, organized and disorganized, thrown into juxtaposition, and often randomly re-discovered anew by individuals negotiating various value systems associated with objects. It evokes an image of coming to objects of the past with new eyes and curiosity. On the other hand, rummaging could also be used to describe an intellectual approach. In posing questions about the how and why certain narratives come to be exhibited and interpreted, we root around historical understandings of heritage and the power dynamics that lead certain narratives to become dominant. This process is guided by curiosity, a drive to understand, and a skepticism of ordering systems.

Hello!
Thanks to those of you who attended last Friday for a great discussion!
Our final meeting of this semester will be next Friday, April 11, from 1-2 PM in 2271 Angell. We'll be discussing José Jorge Mendoza's paper "'GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!' Racism, Xenophobia, and White Nationalism" (2023), attached below.
We are planning to order brunch from aMa bistro, so please RSVP here by April 10 if you'd like to join.
If you'd like to join in on zoom, the link is here. Hope to see many of you there!
Best,
Yixuan & AG

On Friday, April 11th, the Central Asian Studies RIW will meet in 1014 Tisch at 4pm to workshop an article-in-progress from Hazal Ozdemir, a 2024-2025 Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The article is titled, "Women’s Mobility as a Legal Battlefield:Gendering Armenian Property in the Late Ottoman Empire," and a description is below. All are invited to attend and take part in the workshop! We will provide free food for all attendees. The paper will be circulated one week before the workshop.

The transatlantic journey of Ottoman Armenians began as a temporary labor migration for men. However, the policies of Abdülhamid II's government (1876-1909) quickly changed the nature of this mobility. In 1896, an imperial decree permitted Armenians to emigrate to the United States if they renounced their Ottoman subjecthood and pledged not to return. When Armenian men who had migrated before 1896 faced deportation upon return, they sought to bring their families to the U.S. This paper argues that the Hamidian government enacted complicated laws regarding the emigration of Armenian women, reflecting a strategy aimed at seizing Armenian property and challenging American extraterritoriality.

For questions please reach out to Albert Cavallaro at albertca@umich.edu.

Best,
Albert Cavallaro