Princeton TechSoc Reading Group

The Princeton TechSoc Reading Group is dedicated to exploring the interrelationships between technology and society, with an emphasis on IT policy issues. Subscribe here to the email list.

Meetings are posted on the CITP event page . For additional information and the Zoom link for meetings please contact Monica Greco at or Jakob Mokander at

Spring 2023 – Meetings are from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in 306 Sherrerd Hall unless otherwise noted.

Tuesday, February 7:  Ranjit Singh, ‘Give Me a Database and I Will Raise the Nation-State’.
Tuesday, February 21: Dave Lauer, ‘You cannot have AI ethics without ethics’.
Tuesday, March 7: Peter Pomerantsev, ‘Russia’s genocidal propaganda must not be passed off as freedom of speech’.
Tuesday, March 21: Krippner & Kirschman, ‘The person of the category’. Meeting will be held in 008 Sherrerd.
Tuesday, April 4: Ben Hayes, ‘Mapping Surveillance Technology Exports in Migration Deals’. (TBC)
Tuesday, April 11: Soshana Zuboff, ‘Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization’.

Please note that this is a preliminary schedule and that both dates and readings may be subject to change. Confirmation emails will be sent to everyone on the TechSoc reading list one week before each session.

Fall 2022

Tuesday, November 29 – 2 p.m. – 306 Sherrerd Hall – Elena Esposito – Artificial Communication

Spring 2022

Our theme this semester is Tech and the Environment. We’ll also be spotlighting local environmental news each to ground our meetings in the communities around us, so please check out this resource too:

• Climates of Inequality – Building Resistance in a Burdened Community
  • To learn more about activism around environmental justice in Ironbound, check out Ironbound Community Corporation

Thursday, February 10

This week, our theme is Indigenous People and the Environment — We’ll be discussing how communities have used technology in the fight against environmental degradation, while also complicating our understandings of “environmentally friendly tech”. We’ll be centering Indigenous voices in our discussion, and welcome you to consider the histories and legacies of colonialism in NJ history, while also uplifting indigenous resistance, joy, and futures.

Here are some suggested readings to review prior to the discussion:

• Native Lens: Darrah Blackwater
• As Miners Chase Clean-Energy Minerals, Tribes Fear a Repeat of the Past – The New York Times
• Cartographers Without Borders

Local News:

• Our farm won’t just feed us, tribe says. It’ll reclaim the lifestyle pollution stole. – nj.com

Fall 2021

• Tuesday, October 26 – The theme of the meeting will be labor and workers.
• Tuesday, November 9 – We’ll be discussing the role of users as stakeholders in tech.
• Tuesday, December 7

Spring 2021

• Tuesday, February 23 – 4 p.m. – The TechSoc reading group will be reading “Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass” by Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri.
• Wednesday, March 31 – 4 p.m. – The TechSoc rading group will be reading Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures by André Brock, Jr.

Fall 2020

• September 15 – We will be reading “Langdon Winner’s “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”.
• October 6 – We will be reading “Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?” (Oakland ’20, Best Student Paper Award). We will also be hearing from the lead author of the paper, Matt Bernhard.

Spring 2020

• February 4 – Discussion regarding global cyber threats in light of the United States Department of Homeland Security (USDHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency alert on threats from Iran, as well as concerns articulated in the media that this rhetoric may serve to obfuscate actions by other states, as occurred last fall.
• February 18 – Social Movements, Protests, and Technology, led by Shaanan Cohney
• March 3 – AI and Facial Recognition on College Campuses
• March 24 – Disinformation, led by Sergey Sanovitch
• April 7 – Privacy and Power, led by Ari Ezra Waldman
• April 21 – AI and the Future of Work Case Studies, led by Tithi Chattopadhyay

Fall 2019

• • September 24 – Discussion regarding ethical and policy questions around data brokers, including the proposed Data Broker List Act of 2019.
  • October 8 – Competition and Big Tech, hosted by Mihir Kshirsagar.
  • October 22 – Dr. Seth Lazar will join us for a discussion of his scholarship on the social value of explanation in AI.
  • November 5 – Smart Cities
  • November 19 – Dr. Finn Brunton will join us to discuss his book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.
  • December 3 – Privacy, Surveillance, and Data Governance in Education

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