Student Research Blogs & Starter Kits for English 238 (F 2018)

As one of the assignments for English 238, “Critical Infrastructure Studies,” graduate students in the course had the option to write a short series of research blog posts. They also created “starter kits” of readings, exhibits, and other materials for thinking about infrastructure in relation to a particular field or topic.

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Alanna Bartolini (English, UC Santa Barbara)

• “[Title TBD]” (Dec. 20, 2018)
• “Poverty Literature and the Victorian Novel: London Slums as Sites of Empire and the Infrastructures of Urban Poverty” (Dec. 20, 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Women Writers, the (S)lumpenproletariat, and Victorian London’s Poverty Infrastructure (Dec. 20, 2018)

Rebecca Baker (English, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Invisible Lives” (Dec. 6, 2018)
• “The Red Frontier: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars and the Dream of Utopia” (Dec. 9, 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Broken Infrastructures, Invisible Subjects: A “Starter Kit” of Readings and Curios

Susan (Su) Burtner (Geography, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Shit Creek” (Nov. 4, 2018)
• “Our Frankenstein” (Nov. 20, 2018)
• “The Hyper-Creek” (Dec. 1, 2018)
• “Stationarity is Dead” (Dec. 3, 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Daylighting Islais Creek through Maps

Nathan Cox (Film & Media Studies, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Disney Parks Infrastructure: Introduction” (20 Nov. 2018)
• “Disney Parks Infrastructure: Boundaries, Part I” (25 Nov. 2018)
• “Disney Parks Infrastructure: Boundaries, Part II” (10 Dec. 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Disney Parks Infrastructure Field Guide (10 Dec. 2018)

Sean Gilleran (History, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Whose Revolution? ARPANET and Student Protest at UCSB” (29 Nov. 2018)
• “Whose Future? North Hall before the Take-Over” (6 Dec. 2018)
•  Starter Kit   No Power Here: A Critical Infrastructure Studies Starter Kit

Ryan Leach (English, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Back to the Screen?: Video Games and Critical Infrastructure Studies” (9 Dec. 2018)
• “Hacking Games: else Heart.Break()“ (10 Dec. 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Hacking Virtual Worlds: Video Games and Critical Infrastructure Studies (29 Nov. 2018)

Miguel Penabella (Film & Media Studies, UC Santa Barbara)

• [Chose critical essay assignment option instead of blog post option.]
•  Starter Kit   Circulating Cinema(goers): Philippine Cinema and Critical Infrastructure Studies (9 Dec. 2018)

Leila Stegemoeller (English, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Notes on a Phenomenology of Infrastructure and Affect” (10 Dec. 2018)
• “[TBD]” (10 Dec. 2018)
•  Starter Kit   The Ambient Infrastructure of George Eliot’s Middlemarch (29 Nov. 2018)

Amaru Tejeda (Film & Media Studies, UC Santa Barbara)

• “Rethinking Infrastructural (In)Visibility (Part 1)” (14 Dec. 2018)
• “Rethinking Infrastructural (In)Visibility (Part 2)” (15 Dec. 2018)
•  Starter Kit   Mediating Infrastructures (29 Nov. 2018)