In ‘Data Empire,’ Roopika Risam Traces Data’s Grip on Power
Join Roopika Risam at a Dartmouth Libraries Book Talk in Baker-Berry Library on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 12:30 p.m. to hear more about Data Empire. (Registration is required.)
https://libcal.dartmouth.edu/event/16823675
The professor of film and media studies and comparative literature examines the fraught relationship between data and power, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern AI.
Risam’s new book, Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate. The professor of film and media studies and comparative literature traces data collection from Ice Age cave markings to the AI systems governments now depend on. From medieval land surveys to actuarial tables that valued enslaved people as cargo, the choice of what to count, and who counts, she argues, has always been about power.