Fembot

Fembot Collective: http://fembotcollective.org/

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GNMT symposium, October 2011, University of Oregon. Photographs by Chelsea Bullock. Symposium Report available here.

Mission Statement:

Fembot grew out of the Gender, New Media, and Technology RIG. As currently conceptualized, it is both a community and a project. Fembot offers a new model for open access, multimodal publishing and dissemination that will provide a prototype for review, research, and mentoring in the humanities. Grounded in feminist politics and scholarship, Fembot participants are committed to the project of democratizing scholarly communication and opening our research up not only to scholars throughout the world but to broader publics as well. Buried in the deep web, the products of our research have long been too costly for—and inaccessible to—such diverse publics. Fembot is taking full advantage of an array of digital tools and open source software to re-define feminist scholarly production and facilitate participation in this dialogue.

The Fembot website is currently made up of three overlapping projects:

  1. The journal published by Fembot, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, which will produce thematic issues on specific topics, organized by editors drawn from the Fembot community with research interests and expertise in particular areas. Our first issue, for example, will ask prominent scholars in the field (such as Mia Consalvo, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Donna Haraway, Tara McPherson, Lisa Nakamura, Lisa Parks, T.L. Taylor, and others) to write short 5,000 word pieces discussing the state of the field, challenges, and opportunities for future research. Our second issue will be edited by Dr. Nina Huntemann, coeditor of the anthology Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (Routledge, 2010) and producer and director of the educational video, Game Over: Gender, Race and Violence in Video Games (2000), distributed by the Media Education Foundation. Future issues will address topics like social networking; gender and bit torrenting; web design; the role of science fiction in generating critical thought about gender and technology; and so forth. Guest editors will be solicited to create multimodal content for the issues they edit.
  2. Laundry Day: a short multimodal that will crowd-source feminist scholars’ responses to contemporary media debates and issues through series of curated media artifacts.
  3. Professional potpourri: a clearinghouse for information about research, jobs, and related issues.

Fembot is supported by a group of scholars researching gender, new media, and technology who will review contributions, contribute to both Ada and “Dirty Laundry,” serve as an advisory board for editorial decisions, and test the workflow and review systems that will be developed in the future.

Plans for 2011-12:
  • Submission of NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant (September 2011)
  • Feminist Digital Publishing Symposium (October 2011). See our blog for this symposium.
  • Website development (ongoing)
  • Laundry Day solicitations and publication (ongoing)
  • Ada: Solicitation for first issue and review system development (ongoing)
  • Fembot Screening and Google Hang-Out about documentary Miss-Representation (January 2012)
Coordinators/Sponsoring Faculty Members:

Carol Stabile, English/SOJC/WGS, cstabile@uoregon.edu