Join us on July 3 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest Roopika Risam, PhD to discuss her latest book Data Empire: How Information Shaped Human History.
Click here to register for this virtual presentation.
Roopika Risam is Professor of Digital Humanities and Social Engagement at Dartmouth. Her research explores how histories of race, empire, and technology shape the modern world. She is the author of New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, taught in over 150 universities worldwide, and co- editor of four collections, including Anti-Racist Community Engagement and The Digital Black Atlantic. Her work has been supported by over $4.3 million in grants from the NEH, Mellon Foundation, and others. She is also known for her public scholarship and digital projects, including Torn Apart/Separados, which visualized the U.S. government’s family separation policy at the border. Risam is past president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the U.S. scholarly organization for digital research in the humanities.
An NPR Summer Reading pick, Data Empire reframes human history through the lens of information, arguing that data has always been a primary tool of control and power. Tracing a lineage from Mesopotamian clay tablets and colonial record-keeping to modern corporate algorithms, the book reveals how collecting data makes civilization—and state surveillance—possible. It critiques how current data systems inherit historical inequalities, like colonialism and bias, while highlighting a modern shift from state to private corporate control. Ultimately, it serves as a sweeping history and urgent call to understand data’s power and imagine resistance today.
