Ruha Benjamin in Conversation with Chris Gilliard
Chris Gilliard, Macomb Community College; Ruha Benjamin, African American Studies
February 24, 2023 · 4:00 pm—5:30 pm · Chancellor Green Rotunda
Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students
Join the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students for the next installation of their FOCUS Speaker Series in the iconic Chancellor Green Rotunda at 4:00 pm on Friday, Feb 24, 2023. The first FOCUS speaker event of this year will feature writer, professor and speaker Dr. Chris Gilliard in conversation with Professor Ruha Benjamin of the African American Studies Department.
FOCUS is an interdisciplinary initiative sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students designed to bring anti-racist scholarship, thought, and action to every part of university life. The name and mission of FOCUS were inspired by the words of Toni Morrison, the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, and the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature
Chris Gilliard is a professor at Macomb Community College whose scholarship concentrates on digital privacy, surveillance, and the intersections of race, class, and technology. He advocates for critical and equity-focused approaches to tech in education and was recently profiled in the Washington Post. His works have been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Ed, EDUCAUSE Review, Vice, Real Life Magazine, Wired, and The Atlantic.
Ruha Benjamin specializes in the interdisciplinary study of science, medicine, and technology; race-ethnicity and gender; knowledge and power. She is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab and author of three books, Viral Justice (2022), Race After Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013), and editor of Captivating Technology (2019). Through their conversation, listeners are encouraged to learn about the ways in which the tech industry reinforces biases, and increase their understanding of the role of social platforms and artificial intelligence in society.
The event is free and open to the public. Attendees will have an opportunity to engage in conversation with professors Gilliard and Benjamin. Undergraduate attendees will be provided free copies of Viral Justice, which have been purchased from Source of Knowledge, an independent Black-owned bookstore in Newark, New Jersey. A reception will be held following the lecture.
