James W Malazita
Ph.D. in Communication, Culture, and Media, Drexel University, 2014
B.S./M.S. in Digital Media, Drexel University, 2009
Jim Malazita is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work draws from Science and Technology Studies, Media Studies, Game Studies, and the Digital Humanities. Originally trained as a game designer, animator, and web developer, Malazita applies design thinking to the humanities, using both cultural studies and design methods to blur the boundaries between technical production and social and political critique.
Malazita founded and directs RPI’s “Tactical Humanities Lab,” a critical digital humanities research and pedagogical space. As a hybrid space for technical production and humanistic inquiry, work in the THL centers around two intersecting initiatives: “Critical Platform Studies,” or the analysis of political, epistemic, and structural power built into technical systems, and “Critical Platform Design,” or the construction of digital and material technosystems that promote alternative and subversive ways of thinking about technology and society.
Malazita is appointed in the Games & Simulation Arts & Sciences (GSAS) Program and in the Department of Science & Technology Studies (STS), where he teaches courses on game design, digital studies, and critical design. He is the PI on a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-funded educational initiative, “alt.code,” that uses arts and the digital humanities to bridge critical social theory with computer science education.
Malazita’s research interests include the politics of digital design practices and platforms; the epistemic infrastructures of computer science, design, and the humanities; digital fabrication and media archeology; the politics of the digital humanities; game studies; cultural narratives of body modification and transhumanism; mythmaking practices of science and technology; and the synthesizing of humanities and technical education.
Malazita’s articles and book chapters are published or forthcoming in a wide variety of academic venues, including in The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, Design Issues, Biological Theory, Review of Communication, Debates in the Digital Humanities, and Women in Games, Feminism in Play. His research and teaching have been supported by the NEH Office of Digital Humanities, the NEH Division of Educational Programs, the Popular Culture Association, The New Jersey Historical Commission, Red Hat Inc., and Rensselaer’s Teaching and Learning Collaboratory.
B.S./M.S. in Digital Media, Drexel University, 2009
Jim Malazita is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work draws from Science and Technology Studies, Media Studies, Game Studies, and the Digital Humanities. Originally trained as a game designer, animator, and web developer, Malazita applies design thinking to the humanities, using both cultural studies and design methods to blur the boundaries between technical production and social and political critique.
Malazita founded and directs RPI’s “Tactical Humanities Lab,” a critical digital humanities research and pedagogical space. As a hybrid space for technical production and humanistic inquiry, work in the THL centers around two intersecting initiatives: “Critical Platform Studies,” or the analysis of political, epistemic, and structural power built into technical systems, and “Critical Platform Design,” or the construction of digital and material technosystems that promote alternative and subversive ways of thinking about technology and society.
Malazita is appointed in the Games & Simulation Arts & Sciences (GSAS) Program and in the Department of Science & Technology Studies (STS), where he teaches courses on game design, digital studies, and critical design. He is the PI on a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-funded educational initiative, “alt.code,” that uses arts and the digital humanities to bridge critical social theory with computer science education.
Malazita’s research interests include the politics of digital design practices and platforms; the epistemic infrastructures of computer science, design, and the humanities; digital fabrication and media archeology; the politics of the digital humanities; game studies; cultural narratives of body modification and transhumanism; mythmaking practices of science and technology; and the synthesizing of humanities and technical education.
Malazita’s articles and book chapters are published or forthcoming in a wide variety of academic venues, including in The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, Design Issues, Biological Theory, Review of Communication, Debates in the Digital Humanities, and Women in Games, Feminism in Play. His research and teaching have been supported by the NEH Office of Digital Humanities, the NEH Division of Educational Programs, the Popular Culture Association, The New Jersey Historical Commission, Red Hat Inc., and Rensselaer’s Teaching and Learning Collaboratory.
less
InterestsView All (23)
Uploads
Papers by James W Malazita
To illustrate the impacts of abstraction, this essay will introduce “Critical CS1,” a hybrid pedagogical approach to teaching Computer Science through feminist and critical race theory. However, other components of the epistemic infrastructures of Computer Science, from curricular structure, to IT systems, to classroom culture, to the epistemic practices of OOP coding itself, resisted these intervention efforts, and reproduced marginalizing effects upon students within the course.
To illustrate the impacts of abstraction, this essay will introduce “Critical CS1,” a hybrid pedagogical approach to teaching Computer Science through feminist and critical race theory. However, other components of the epistemic infrastructures of Computer Science, from curricular structure, to IT systems, to classroom culture, to the epistemic practices of OOP coding itself, resisted these intervention efforts, and reproduced marginalizing effects upon students within the course.
The project brings together scholars at various stages of their careers from across the Humanities and Digital Humanities to participate in an intensive three-day 3D Making and Critique workshop and follow on research. The project’s goal is to materially brainstorming printed artifacts that serve as critical investigations, while providing time for reflection upon the broader social and environmental contexts of the 3D printing process. The intended results of the project will be: 1) to produce and disseminate early stage critical objects, 2) to generate reflexive theory and critique about 3D printing and making practices, 3) to connect Humanities scholars across both the making and critical bodies of humanistic scholarship, and 4) to create an action plan for collaborative written and made scholarship targeted for publication in open-access presses and exhibitions.
The minor brings together students, faculty, and resources from the Departments of Science & Technology Studies, Arts, and Computer Science. Graduates of the minor will have expertise in interdisciplinary, community-engaged critical making, which allows them to develop as:
-Engaged Citizens
Students learn how to apply humanistic modes of inquiry to the software and computational production, and to develop interactive digital works that engage the local community.
-Productive Professionals
Students learn how to work on interdisciplinary teams, including through co-design with community members, and/or external clients, to develop meaningful interdisciplinary humanities, arts and computing projects for the public.
The 4-course minor is being developed by a team of 6 faculty from across 3 departments: Dr. James Malazita (Science and Technology Studies), Dr. Rebecca Rouse (Arts), Silvia Ruzanka, MFA (Arts), Shawn Lawson, MFA (Arts), Dr. Sibel Adali (Computer Science), and Dr. Barbara Cutler (Computer Science). The development of the new minor will allow for new interdisciplinary curricular arrangements among this faculty team, including team teaching. High-impact student engagement activities form the core of the curricular structure of the minor, which is centered around both collaborative undergraduate research projects, and projects focused on community engagement and public deployment.
This project is therefore indebted to various recent movements in the social sciences and the humanities that have begun to take more seriously the ways in which "things" impact human life. The "ontological Turn" in philosophy, the "material turn" in anthropological and sociological sciences, the "posthuman" moment in the humanities, and the "Cognitive Archaeology" movement in cognitive science, among others, all share a common thread of critiquing the anthropocentrism of the humanities and social theory.
I will forward, then, three major arguments:
1.) That it is often the case, particularly in the social sciences, that scholars look not at non-human objects, but instead at the ways those objects are perceived and labeled by humans/society. Scholars of materiality, then, often miss the mark, and study the conceptualizations of objects at the expense of the objects in of themselves.
2.) That it is theoretically and empirically possible to examine objects in of themselves, and that it is important to do so, as both material and non-material objects contain causal powers that impact history and society independent of the human recognition or conceptualization of these powers.
3.) That objects are also subjects, and engage in intersubjective meaning-making both with humans and other objects. Objects, then, should not be theorized as having various mechanical impacts upon human communities that they interact with, but should instead be theorized as members of the community in of themselves. Non-human entities, in other words, are themselves social beings.