Technology, Culture, and Power Speaker Series: Mara Mills

October 3rd, 2024 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm PST

Encina Commons 119 615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Vent: Disability Distributive Justice and Algorithms for Ventilator Allocation

Join Stanford PACS and the Cyber Policy Center for a monthly gathering that explores critical insights on the intersections and implications of technology and society. The Technology, Culture, and Power Speaker Series is a thought-provoking forum on the Stanford campus featuring leading experts and scholars examining the interactions of digital technologies, culture, and inequality. Light refreshments and snacks will be served. Please arrive 5 minutes early to avoid disrupting the guest speaker.

We are joined by Mara Mills, a leading voice in disability studies and digital technology. During this talk, Professor Mills will explore the complex ethical and social debates surrounding ventilator allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic and advocate for a disability informed approach to justice and equality.

Mara Mills is Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University and co-founding Director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies. She is also a founding editorial board member of the journal Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. In addition to her wide-ranging scholarship at the intersection of disability and technology, she has made the Center for Disability Studies a hub for public humanities and disability arts programming. She is recently coeditor of Crip Authorship: Disability as Method (NYU Press, 2023) and a special issue of the journal Osiris on “Disability and the History of Science” (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Upcoming publications include the edited collection How to be Disabled in a Pandemic (NYU Press, February 2025), funded by the National Science Foundation; a coauthored book with media scholar Jonathan Sterne on blind reading practices and time stretching technology; and a collaborative research project with anthropologist Michele Friedner, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, on “The Global Cochlear Implant.”

Request disability accommodations and access information here.

This event is made possible with support from the Humanities Seed Grant from Stanford Public Humanities.