DH Speaker: Miriam Posner: Seeing Like a Supply Chain

We're used to getting almost anything at almost anytime, as long as we're willing to pay. And most of us are aware that many things we buy come from far away. But how do companies make this happen? And what can that tell us about the world we live in? This presentation discusses the origins and current state of supply-chain management (SCM), the discipline that moves goods across the world. It focuses specifically on the technology behind SCM, explaining how a specific vision of global economics is embedded in software and data. More details.

Miriam Posner is an assistant professor at the UCLA Department of Information Studies. She’s also a digital humanities scholar with interests in labor, race, feminism, and the history and philosophy of data. Miriam has published widely on technology, data, and the humanities, including pieces in Postmodern Culture, Theory & Event, American Quarterly, The Moving Image, Logic, The Guardian, and The New Yorker.

Sponsored by the Scholars' Lab, New Literary History, and IHGC.