"Technoskepticism" book featuring Drs. Catherine Knight Steele and Rianna Walcott now published

Check out the new publication from the DISCO Network!

Technoskepticism: Between Possibility and Refusal was published February 11, 2025, by Stanford University Press.

Technoskepticism explores possibility and refusal in relation to new technologies, covering a wide range of pressing topics from Munchausen syndrome by TikTok to wellness apps to online communities to AI. The case for technoskepticism unfolds across three sections: the first focused on disability, the creative use of wellness apps, and the desire for diagnosis; the second on digital nostalgia and home for Black and Asian users who produced communities online before home pages gave way to profiles; and the third focused on the violence inherent in A.I.-generated Black bodies and the possibilities for Black style in the age of A.I. Acknowledging how the urge to refuse new technologies emerges from specific racialized histories, the authors also emphasize how care can look like an exuberant embrace of the new.

This book was co-written by an intergenerational group of 14 scholars in the DISCO Network, a consortium of investigators working to envision a new anti-racist and anti-ableist digital future.

This book features scholarship by COMM Associate Professor and Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab Director Dr. Catherine Knight Steele, and COMM Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the BCaT Lab Dr. Rianna Walcott. 

The launch for Technoskepticism is Wednesday, February 26, from 5-7 pm in Skinner 3115. The first 10 attendees will receive a free copy of the book! Join for a conversation and reception with the authors. 

Congrats on this great achievement!