This month I have a new title—I’m an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, on tenure track. It’s not fully clear to me how this departure from the precariat happened, except that it involved a move across the country with my family, astonishingly supportive colleagues, patient students, and an opportunity to do some good that I hope I can live up to.
All this has gotten me reading about the origins of universities in self-governing medieval guilds and remembering my grandfathers—one a state-university professor and one who never made it to college because of a hail storm.
I wrote about them in America.
“a better internet is possible”
The enemy isn’t supposed to be this nice, but somehow Wired magazine chose Ours to Hack and to Own, the book I co-edited with Trebor Scholz, as one of the “best tech books of 2017.”
Buy it in bitcoin or dollars from OR Books.
I’ve also been getting kind of worked up lately about the potential for co-op and municipal broadband, especially in the wake of the FCC net neutrality decision. I’ve been writing on this for Quartz and The Guardian, and my congressman, Rep. Jared Polis, had me on a webinar to discuss it. Scientific American quoted me on the subject, too.
More to come. I’m currently (or currently should be) hard at work on edits for my next book, which will be out in time for Co-op Month from Nation Books.
Works not cited
Back in 1895, Hastings Randall was worrying about a lot of what university people today worry about when he wrote his hefty history of the medieval university.
Johann Hari thinks that worker co-ops might be at least as effective against depression as meds.
Kaya Oakes writes beautifully about middle age and the medieval women helping her embrace it.
Harvard says it so it must be true: community broadband is better.
I’ve been hearing from Kiera Feldman for years about her reporting among trash collectors, but what she published in ProPublica blew me (and lots of other people) away.
My kid isn’t that into Matt de la Peña’s Love, but I am.
Stops
- 2018.02.17: Denver, CO – ETHDenver panel on the crypto-economy
- 2018.02.23: Logan, UT – Talks on platform cooperativism and open research at Utah State University
- 2018.03.07: Cambridge, MA – Platform cooperativism discussion at Harvard Law School
- 2018.03.08: South Hadley, MA – Mount Holyoke College
- 2018.03.10: Austin, TX – “Platform Co-Ops: Competitive Edge, Social Purpose” at South by Southwest
- 2018.04.14: East Lansing, MI – MSU Student Housing Cooperative