Digital Civil Society Speaker Series: Intersectional Tech: Black Praxis in the Digital Era

March 7th, 2024 - 4:00 pm to 5:15 pm PT

Encina Commons, Room 119 615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Register here to join in-person.

Join us for a monthly gathering that explores critical insights on the intersections and implications of digital dependencies with democratic norms and civil society values and actors. The Digital Civil Society Speaker Series is a thought-provoking forum that brings together leading experts and scholars to discuss pressing issues shaping our digital world.

The Digital Civil Society Lab is delighted to be joined by Dr. Kishonna Gray who will discuss Intersectional Tech: Black Praxis in the Digital Era

The purpose of this talk is to explore the hybrid communities examining the role of transmedia in helping to create worlds and public infrastructures and sustain communities to foster identity development in both physical and digital contexts. The hybrid spaces within gaming culture that Black folks in particular inhabit are the few spaces that value the articulation of marginalized interests and viewpoints. The visual of this mapping creates an intricate nexus of analyzing what identity and digital identity development means for marginalized users across platforms.  Gaming is the space to explore this Black cultural production.

Dr. Kishonna Gray is an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University. Dr. Gray is the author or co-editor of numerous books and articles including her foundational 2014 work Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live: Theoretical Perspectives from the Virtual Margins, 2018’s edited collections Woke Gaming and Feminism in Play (University of Washington press) and most recently Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming. She also has a book currently under contract with NYU Press entitled Black Game Studies. She’s a highly sought after speaker and regularly addresses both academic and industry audiences such as at the Game Developers Conference. She is the winner of a number awards over the years including The Evelyn Gilbert Unsung Hero Award and the Blacks in Gaming Educator Award.

The speaker series is open to anyone who wishes to engage with critical insights on the intersections and implications of digital dependencies with democratic norms and civil society values and actors. 

Speakers

• Dr. Kishonna Gray - Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky; Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University