Embedded Files
OPENING REMARKS
OPENING REMARKS
This year, we will begin the conference with words from UnKie Pixie Wells, a Métis Elder and knowledge sharer (pictured left). We will then hear from Sage Hughes and Alan Ropke, the Chairs of this year's conference, and turn to Graduate Chair Zoë Druick for close off the opening remarks before starting the morning panels.
When: May 8, 2026, 9:50 AM – 10:30 AM
Where: Room K8652
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
We are excited to announce this year's keynote speaker as Dr. Moira Weigel. She will be joining us virtually on Friday, May 8th at 1:30-2:30 PM to speak about her recent work bringing AI interventions into conversation with feminist political theory.
When: May 8, 2026, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Where: Room K8652 or join via Zoom
Topic
Topic
Scaling Laws and Social Reproduction
Scaling Laws and Social Reproduction
"In this talk, I bring recent interventions that describe AI as a “normal technology” into conversation with feminist political theory. Specifically, I draw on the work of Nancy Fraser to argue that several controversies currently surrounding AI within and beyond the United States constitute expressions of a “normal” tendency within capitalist societies toward crises of social reproduction. Tracing current crises at four analytic levels—datasets, individuals, institutions, and ecologies—I argue that we can further enrich Fraser’s framework and the Marxist feminist tradition more broadly by attending to the role of specific technologies in shaping the terms of “boundary struggles.” I also offer some reflections on Fraser’s current popularity in China, and the utility that social reproduction theory might offer for analyzing recent developments in Chinese digital economy and culture."
About Moira Weigel
About Moira Weigel
Dr. Moira Weigel is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and the author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating (2016) and co-editor of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—and How They Do It (2020). In recent years, Dr. Weigel's research has explored the history of intellectual exchange across critical theorists, computer scientists, and other practitioners— including, for example, big names in 'Big Tech' (e.g., Alex Karp)—focusing on forms of conservatism and nationalism that are often perceived as antithetical to digital networks, yet increasingly prevalent in digital technology industries. She is currently working on her next book, tentatively-titledThird Party, which explores marketplace platforms from the perspectives of merchants, software and service providers, investors and other “complementors”, attending to the forms of communication that these technologies mediate and the imaginaries of “the global” that they sustain. Read more about Dr. Weigel's work here.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse