<nettime-ann> Kenneth Webin's The List Serves--Population Control and Po

Kenneth Webin: The List Serves--Population Control and Power

With a Preface by Geert Lovink

Institute of Network Cultures, Theory on Demand #22

http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/the-list-serves/

Inspired by taxonomist Jack Goody’s theorizing of ‘ancient lists’ as ‘intellectual technologies’, this book analyzes listing practices in modern and contemporary formations of power, and how they operate in the installation and securing of the milieus of circulation that characterize Michel Foucault’s conception of governmentality. Propelling the list’s role in the delimitation and policing of risky and threatening elements from out of history and into a contemporary analysis of power, this work demonstrates how assemblages of computer, statistical, and list technologies first deployed by the Nazi regime continue to resonate significantly in the segmenting and constitution of a critical classification of contemporary homo sapiens: the terrorist class, or homo sacer.

Kenneth C. Werbin is an Associate Professor of Digital Media and Journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford Campus (Canada). His research focuses broadly on questions surrounding digital and social media, commodification and surveillance.

Edited By: Miriam Rasch. Cover design: Katja van Stiphout. DTP: Leonieke van Dipten. EPUB development: Leonieke van Dipten. Printer: Print on Demand. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2017. ISBN: 978-94-92302-15-1, paperback, 182 pages.