Critical Data Studies Events

CDS has hosted a robust program of events to promote scholarly conversations across Purdue’s campus and create opportunities for public dialogue on key issues in critical data studies. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the CDS Collective organized two Spring 2021 virtual events in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. In Spring 2022, the CDS Collective is organizing a virtual reading group.

CDS Reading Group

The Critical Data Studies (CDS) Collective is hosting a Spring 2022 virtual reading discussion group on critical data studies. At each of these get-togethers, we’ll think about what CDS can teach us for dismantling structures of oppression and imagining ways to think, organize, and create for a more just world.  

Each reading group session will be hosted virtually over Zoom with closed-captioning enabled, and you are welcome to come to one, several, or all four sessions. We welcome folks to join who are interested and curious about CDS and want to listen and contribute to the discussion. Our intention for these events is to support collaborative dialogue. These get-togethers will be held from 1-2 pm EST on the following dates and are free and open to all who'd like to participate:

February 16th: Abolishing - Abolition University and Feminist Refusal 
March 3rd: Doing - Anticolonial Science
March 30th: Organizing - Digital Labor and Global Solidarity
April 21st: Reimagining - Resistance in Action

The list of assigned readings for each of the dates is available below. Once you open this link, if you click on the hyperlinked titles of the readings, you will be taken to the recommended piece: 

https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dg2U55UHLWxEynI

CDS Teach-Ins

Do Black Lives Matter to the University? Science, Technology, and the Racial-Colonial Legacies of Higher Education

The Critical Data Studies Collective at Purdue University hosted a moderated virtual teach-in on “Do Black Lives Matter to the University? Science, Technology, and the Racial-Colonial Legacies of Higher Education,” followed by a virtual reception on April 23, 2021, from 12:00-1:30 pm. This virtual teach-in considered a range of questions, including: what are the university’s disparate impacts on Black lives through research, policing, and austerity measures? What justice-oriented responses are possible that center people of color? To explore the university’s enduring role in racial injustice and how to challenge it, the teach-in will feature a conversation between Dr. Davarian L. Baldwin, Dr. Darrin Johnson, and Audrey Beard.

COVID-19: Data Ethics, Research, and Rights

What are the disparate impacts of the "new normal" brought about by the pandemic, where universities routinely collect personal health information? Purdue's Dr. Kim Gallon (College of Liberal Arts), Dr. Natalia Rodriquez (College of Health and Human Sciences), and Julia Taylor (Purdue Exponent) joined us for a virtual teach-in and discussion of the promises, perils, and consequences of institutional data collection efforts. This virtual Teach-In took place February 5, 2021 from 12:00-1:30 pm.

Both virtual events were possible thanks to the support of an Enabling Inclusion grant from the  Purdue Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. It was free to participate, open to the public, closed captioned, and ASL interpreted.

CDS Open Seminar Series

The CDS Open Seminar Series engages students and faculty through roundtable discussions, panel presentations, scholar and artist-led workshops that address key issues relevant to the field of critical data studies. Seminars have previously addressed issues ranging from ethics education in data science, to privacy and critical technology, as well as issues in data curation and more.  

CDS Public Lecture Series

The CDS Public Lecture series brings key scholars in the field to Purdue's campus to address critical challenges related to data science, big data and digital infrastructures in contemporary society. Previous guest speakers have included Dr. Safiya Noble, the author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, and Dr. Virginia Eubanks, the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. In the fall of 2019, the CDS Public Lecture Series hosted Dr. Jenny Reardon, the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the author of The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, and Knowledge after the Genome. In Spring 2020, the CDS Public Lecture Series hosted Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founder of the JUST DATA lab, and author of Race After Technology and People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier.