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roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam
@roopikarisam.bsky.social
8.4K followers 1.9K following 4.4K posts

Chair of Film & Media Studies at Dartmouth 💚, equestrian🐴, author of DATA EMPIRE (Harper & Torva, July 2026) https://roopikarisam.com

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Roopika Risam is an associate professor of film and media studies and of comparative literature and faculty in the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement cluster at Dartmouth College. She was formerly Chair of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education and Associate Professor of Education at Salem State University. She is a scholar of digital and postcolonial humanities. .. more

Art 25%
Communication & Media Studies 21%
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roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · Sep 23
It's UK official! DATA EMPIRE, coming July 9, 2026 🤩
Front page of the bookseller with four author photos and announcements. Mine says "Torva wins seven-way auction for 'breathtakingly ambitious' human history of data" Torva, an imprint of Transworld, has signed the first trade book by Roopika Risam, associate professor of digital humanities at Dartmouth, in a seven- way auction. Publishing director Alex Christofi acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Data Empire: A Human History of Records and Rule from Emma Bal at Madeleine Milburn. North American rights were pre-empted for six figures by Sarah Haugen at Harper. Recommended by the publisher for readers of Nexus and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Data Empire shows how data gathering has been "fundamental" to the human species' success, driving advancements throughout history as well as enabling the exercise of power. The blurb states: "From ancient cave markings and knotted strings to colonial censuses and modern surveillance, data has always been used to shape civilisations, uphold empires and control lives. The story of empire is the story of data - and knowing this history is the first step to breaking its grip on the future." Christofi said: "It is breathtakingly ambitious to read data back into the whole span of human history, from the first clay tokens to the era of surveillance drones - but it becomes impossible to unsee. Professor Risam has written a paradigm-shifting book that is going to change how we understand the struggle to keep control of our own data in the present." Risam's academic research explores how histories of race, empire and technology shape the modern world. She is the author of New Digital Worlds, taught in over 150 universities worldwide, and past president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities. "I'm fortunate to be working with Sarah Haugen at Harper and Alex Christofi at Torva, who understand the urgency and scale of this project and have shaped it with shared editorial vision, and with Emma Bal at the Madeleine Milburn Agency, who challenged me to think more daringly about what this book could be." Torva will publish Data Empire in hardback and trade paperback on 9th July 2026.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 17h
Either CVS or Halls Honey Lemon cough drops

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 17h
*sends friend across the country the exact cough drops you need to survive Paxlovid mouth*
Friend: [Partner] thinks this is nice but unnecessary
Roopsi: I AM SOUTH ASIAN I CAN’T HELP IT
Friend: That’s what I told her!
Roopsi: Thank you for allowing me to fulfill my cultural duties.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 18h
The context of this photo is really funny because we were walking, being filmed, and my independent study student on the right was like WTAF is happening, professor.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 18h
Your friendly neighborhood digital humanists appear in a promotional video for the initiative that got us hired. Listen, if it gives me the opportunity to work with @wernimont.bsky.social, I'll gladly smile for the camera. vimeo.com/1139014443?f...
Me and Jacque Wernimont smiling at one of my students who was was amused that we were walking and being filmed.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 22h
Legit had to google before I wrote this post.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 23h
So do I… and for this project which covers basically the entire timespan of our species, I like that I have been able to find ones from within each chapter’s time period as it demonstrates that really people WERE thinking about the themes of the chapters.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 23h
I feel deeply vindicated about how much time I spent selecting chapter epigraphs because my editors like them.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d
A project I'm working on has me learning about a lot of extremely awesome people. Dudley Thompson may be my favorite. What did this man NOT do? www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com?p=33
Caribbean aircrew in the RAF during WW2 » Blog Archive » THOMPSON – Dudley Lincoln Joseph
www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com

Reposted by Roopika Risam, Lisa Diedrich

prisonculture.bsky.social
Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d
There are more people organizing and pushing back against the regime today than there were in the first term. There are more people in more places (rural towns and big cities across the country). I think it's really strange how resistant some people are to these facts. I wonder what's going on.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d
He is very handsome and has excellent breeding - son of a champion!

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d
This is why you should not leave a stallion intact in a stall with no turnout for 12 years because you want to breed him…

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d
We put my little guy in the round pen to free lunge him and he went WILD. Apparently the two mares in heat are making him think he’s still a stallion, even though that ship sailed five years ago. Oh, Flight.
Black horse kicking out his back legs

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 2d
A little "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" wouldn't go amiss right now.

Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Bruce D. Baker, Roopika Risam , and 1 more

eryk.bsky.social
Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 2d
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Simon L. Lewis, David Dunning , and 8 more

okwonga.bsky.social
Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 2d
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Dispensing false information in a confident tone, rather than offering no answer when none is readily available, is a major flaw of generative AI, experts say. An audit of the top 10 generative AI models including ChatGPT, Gemini and Meta’s AI by the media literacy non-profit NewsGuard revealed that the non-response rates of chatbots went down from 31% in August 2024 to 0% in August 2025. At the same time, the chatbots’ likelihood of repeating false information almost doubled from 18% to 35%, NewsGuard found. None of the companies responded to NewsGuard’s request for a comment at the time.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 2d
“Sometimes I felt like Adam Levine was singing right to me. Or maybe you. But I think it was me.” -my beloved 😂
Adam Levine pointing on stage at the Maroon 5 concert

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 2d
My secret shame, Maroon 5, was AMAZING and we had fantastic seats 😍 They never disappoint.
Maroon 5 on stage Maroon 5 on stage

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 2d
Finally, after countless hours of my life watching Gordon Ramsay on tv… and the waitress told me that he comes to visit a couple times a year, is really nice, and just hops on the line to cook!
Beef Wellington Sticky toffee pudding

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
A good 40% of line edits from my editor address my ardent love of the em dash and another 40% my affinity for triads. At least I conquered my desire to tell people things multiple times, and then a few more times, just to make sure they got it. 😆

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
My little guy enjoying a visit from his massage therapist, Auntie Stefani 💓
Black horse on crossties with his eyes clothes

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
Obviously this was a grant I got at my last institution but still somehow remained PI. It's kind of the last thing tethering me formally to my old job. Once I submit the report, I'm really really really done... three and a half years after actually leaving.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
(I will not miss administering a grant at an institution without grant infrastructure because I am so tired of looking at this spreadsheet.)

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
I only under spent a $3 million grant by $3,431.46. I feel like 2,996,568.54 bucks!

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
This essay talks about a major turning point in my approach to digital humanities, which has directly shaped what I've been doing for the last 5 years. I can show it to you soon once we finish dealing with some UI issues and do a little bit more data cleaning. But really, it freed me.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 3d
Congratulations, Ryan!!!!! So glad to hear it

Reposted by Roopika Risam

dmimno.bsky.social
David Mimno @dmimno.bsky.social · 3d
The second half of #ComputationalHumanities ("asking about") starts with @roopikarisam.bsky.social on the multiple, overlapping challenges faced in computational ethnic studies, and concrete suggestions for how everyone can help reduce them!

dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
Computational Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities
Bringing together leading experts from across North America and Europe, _Computational Humanities_ redirects debates around computation and humanities digital scholarship from dualistic arguments to n...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 4d
The issue is we need really need rakes but gave been handed a shovel.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 4d
While I do believe there is something distinct about Gen AI particularly regarding ethics, statistical prediction, and cognitive “offloading” there are aspects that are a deferred reckoning with volume of available information because it gives the appearance of an easy way of making sense of it.

roopikarisam.bsky.social
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 4d
See! This is what I mean! And yet, as with any topic one might wish to Gen AI there are fundamentals of knowledge for Latin you DO need to know to be able to make use of the dictionary.