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SUMMARY:CDH Open: Digital Fiction and Epistemology Backlashes - Dr Ella Mc
 Pherson\, Cambridge Sociology
DTSTART:20241121T170000Z
DTEND:20241121T190000Z
UID:TALK224644@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:120217
DESCRIPTION:Drawing on Amnesty Norway’s use of generative artificial int
 elligence to illustrate tweets about human rights violations\, the White H
 elmets’ creation of a viral mannequin challenge video\, and Plan Interna
 tional’s fabrication of a child’s wedding blog\, this talk explores di
 gital fiction practices in civil truth-claims worlds.\n\nDigital fiction e
 xists only in a trialectic with digital fact and digital fakery: Digital f
 iction claims a proximal position to digital fact through its actors and i
 ntentions\, but\, because of its methodology of simulacrum\, bridges civil
  truth-claims worlds with underworlds of digital fakery.  This trialectic 
 is not just an analytical phenomenon\, but a dangerous one for civil truth
 -claims worlds.  Digital fiction can make the civil truth-claims world tur
 n on itself\, violently censuring its errant members and\, in so doing\, r
 eifying its methodology of facticity.  This is what I call the epistemolog
 y backlash\, a kind of boundary-work that excludes methodologies.\n\nIn wo
 rking to mitigate digital fiction’s communication risk to civil truth-cl
 aims worlds\, world members narrow the repertoire of human rights and huma
 nitarian advocacy\, edging out the genre of fiction that long has been use
 d to mobilise hearts and minds.  This is episuicide\, a self-directed supp
 ression of forms of knowledge.  Episuicide is a response to an epistemolog
 y backlash\, employed against heterodox epistemologies so that the orthodo
 x epistemology can survive.  I conclude by considering the implications of
  epistemology backlashes and episuicide for my discipline of sociology and
  for democractic politics.
LOCATION: Room S1\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge\, CB
 3 9DT
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