On April 25th, the NULab will be hosting its eighth annual spring conference, “Social Justice” showcasing the work of faculty, students, and research collaborators.

The keynote address will be delivered by Catherine Knight Steele, Associate Professor of Communications at the University of Maryland.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required; please RSVP here. Zoom information will be emailed upon registration. If you will be attending in person, please bring a photo ID to sign into the library.

The conference will be hybrid. We will gather in person at 350a/b Snell Library, and virtually on Zoom. All are welcome to join! We can accept RSVPs for the virtual conference up to the day of the event, but if you will be joining us in person for food, please RSVP by April 15. 

Please note: We are committed to reducing food waste for this event. If you RSVP to join in person and are not able to attend please let us know by April 15 so we can update the lunch order.

Schedule

Times below are in Eastern.

• 9:30am: Light breakfast
• 9:45am: Welcome and opening
  • Welcome, land acknowledgment, grounding exercise: Moira Zellner, NULab Co-Director; Public Policy and Urban Affairs, College of Social Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Conference details: Sarah Connell, NULab Associate Director
• 10–11:30am: AI, Language, and Networks: Digital ecologies and Communities
  • Moderator: Nabeel Gillani, Design and Data Analysis, D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the College of Arts, Media and Design
  • Rahul Bhargava, Journalism, Art + Design, College of Arts, Media and Design
  • Brian Ball & David Freeborn, Philosophy, New College of the Humanities, Northeastern University London
  • Ellen Cushman: NULab Co-Director; Cherokee Nation Citizen, Dean's Professor of Civic Sustainability 
  • Burak Ozturan, Network Science Institute
• 11:30am–12:30pm: Lunch
• 12:30–1:45 pm: Keynote by Catherine Knight Steele, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland - College Park: “Lessons from a Black Feminist Technoculture: Against Automation and Toward Joy”
  • Introduction by Avery Blakenship, English, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
• 2–3:25pm: Technology, Representation, and Radical Possibility 
  • Moderator: Juniper Johnson, English, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Lisa Arellano, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Mills College at Northeastern
  • Kai-cheng Yang, Network Science Institute
  • Johan Arango-Quiroga, Public Policy, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Stephanie Young, English, Mills College at Northeastern
• 3:25pm: Closing 
  • Dan Cohen, Dean of the Library; Vice Provost for Information Collaboration; Professor of History

To make space for informal discussions and community building, this conference will not be recorded. We will be including automated live captioning for the Zoom call and have requested an ASL interpreter.

Keynote Speaker Biography

Dr. Catherine Knight Steele is an educator, researcher, and award-winning author whose research focuses on race and media, specifically emphasizing Black discourse and culture, technology, and social media. She moves beyond examinations of representation in the media to consider the relationship between resistance and joy as technologies of liberation. Much of her work creates spaces of care, community, and collaboration for a more just digital future. She is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland – College Park where she directs the Black Communication and Technology lab (BCaT) as a part of the Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration, & Optimism (DISCO) Network funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

Dr. Steele is a 2024-26 Just Tech Fellow as part of the Social Science Research Council. As a Just Tech Fellow, she is working on “Automating Black Joy,” a cross-generational collaborative project that reimagines the role of Black youth, culture, and history in shaping digital futures. By viewing Black youth as leaders and emphasizing joy as a form of resistance, the project looks to create a collaborative educational model from high school to graduate school. It focuses on accessible research, highlighting Black culture, history, and resistance methods and addressing critical questions about automation, AI, and their implications.

Keynote Abstract 

Lessons from a Black Feminist Technoculture: Against Automation and Toward Joy

Black women have long shaped critical conversations around technology, challenging white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy through a rich techno-cultural history that predates social media. Tracing digital histories from the blogosphere to social media and creator culture, in this talk, we think together about Black joy as a transformative technology of liberation, highlighting the collective speculative imagination in the face of an increasingly automated digital future.