Modeling Value in the Anthropocene | Outreach & Social Media Plan
Considering the esoteric nature of Bernard Stiegler’s work in addition to the niche branch of natural language processing that is word embedding, Modeling Value in the Anthropocene intends to engage with scholars from both fields through its unique use of computational tools applied to the world of philosophy. Though our project will likely resonate most with those working closely with the theoretical and technical approaches found in Modeling Value in the Anthropocene, it is our hope that through our findings we are able to capture a broader scope of attention including that of students of philosophy, digital humanist developers and researchers, and recreational readers of theory.
Intended Audience
As noted above, our intended audience is primarily scholars familiar with the work of Bernard Stiegler and students of the digital humanities. However, due to our belief that Stiegler’s work is an invaluable contribution to philosophically navigating the Capitalocene, it is our hope that broader audiences can be reached, given the time, through a variety of “popularized” outreach approaches to be detailed below.
In addition to this, we also intend to reach out to the Internation Collective, which operates as an international body of transdisciplinary researchers concerned with the questions and objectives opened up and pursued by Bernard Stiegler until his passing. As far as we know, there is no one in this group, nor anyone in surrounding orbits who is undertaking these questions and objectives utilizing distant reading methods. We find the work we are engaging with to be important to this potential audience because this kind of research is related to that which Stiegler called for through the utilization of computational tools to generate new knowledges.
Online Presence
For the time being, our online presence will predominantly consist of a website landing page hosted on the CUNY Academic Commons that details our approach, processes, and findings. Ideally, this will also provide some initiatory information giving those who visit our site a brief and digestible introduction to Bernard Stiegler’s philosophy, publications, and biography, along with additional resources for further reading and analysis. This might come to exist as the “NeganthropoZine” detailed below.
If given the time, we also intend on presenting our project as a model and template for other philosophical inquiries explored through word2vec analysis, with the hope of fostering a community of scholars operating similarly across multiple disciplines.
Social Media
Given that this type of project doesn’t lend itself to a conventional social media profile, we intend on reaching out to a variety of popular philosophy and theory YouTube channels (PlasticPills, Epoch Philosophy, etc.), podcasts (Acid Horizon, New Books Network’s New Work in the Digital Humanities, etc.), and blogs (such as Sam Kinsley’s Spatial Machinations) in order to establish a “social network” of contacts with the hope of working in some collaborative capacity to promote both Stiegler’s work and our project’s findings. This could result in anything from participating in a discussion-based podcast episode with other scholars to jointly producing a blog post or article exploring Stiegler’s Nanjing Lectures through the context of our project, opening up unknown but exciting potentials for the breadth of our project’s reach.
Scholarly Engagement
Though the results are impossible to anticipate, we intend on reaching out to Bernard Stiegler’s longtime associate and translator, Daniel Ross, as well as the author of The Thought of Bernard Stiegler: Capitalism, Technology, and the Politics of Spirit, Ross Abbinnett. Each is a leading figure amongst the small collection of English speaking Stieglerian scholars and have been recently willing to participate in modest, up-and-coming podcasts (such as Daniel Ross’s recent appearance on the Life from Plato’s Cave podcast and Ross Abbinnett’s discussion on a Geomedia Karlstad episode in 2019) so we are hopeful that a brief discussion with either of these scholars is not an impossibility. This, of course, comes in conjunction with our aforementioned outreach to the Internation Collective.
Additionally, we plan on contacting Open Humanities Press, the international open access publishing initiative that published many of Stiegler’s works before his passing, to discuss the possibility of submitting our findings as a journal proposal for future development.
Non-Scholarly Engagement
In an effort to breathe life into the typically dry nature of academic text, there is a strong possibility that both Stiegler t-shirts and a “Neganthropocene Zine” will be created to facilitate further outreach. The shirt, likely embellished with a quote and topical digital illustrations, will come equipped with a scannable QR code that acts to quickly link those curious to our project’s landing page. The “NeganthropoZine” will act as a concise, printable pamphlet for those unfamiliar with Bernard Stiegler’s work, allowing key terms and concepts to be elucidated so that those interested in our project are provided a digestible resource detailing its theoretical framework.