Faculty Spotlight
Angèle Christin: Associate Professor of Communication and, by courtesy, Sociology
When she was a Master's student in France, Professor Christin spent a year conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a criminal court located in the outskirts of Paris. She was interested in how judges and prosecutors made decisions about defendants, and how racial bias played a role in this process. Halfway through their fieldwork, they stumbled upon Bruno Latour's book The Making of Law (published in French in 2002, in English in 2009), where he follows the journey of legal files as they travel through judicial procedures. Loving the attention to materiality and infrastructure really inspired their own project, which was eventually as a book (Comparutions Immédiates, published in French in 2008). This was the beginning of their long--and ongoing--conversation with STS!
Professor Christin connects STS students through the Politics of Algorithms - One of STS's most popular courses!
Professor Christin teaches "Politics of Algorithms" (Comm 154/245), a large class in where they discuss the different ways in which algorithmic and computational systems reproduce and automate existing values, and some consequences of these dynamics. What she loves about this course is that they mix some classic readings from STS and sociology (Winner on bridges, Foucault on surveillance, Goffman on self presentation) and recent examples of algorithmic discrimination, social media drama, and technosolutionism (the idea , in simple terms, that whether every problem can and should be solved with technology). She states that the discussions are very lively (in a good way!) and she hopes that students leave the class feeling comfortable analyzing--and constructively critiquing--the social and political impact of digital technologies. We hope that you all consider taking the class in the future!
Social Media Influencers is currently influencing Professor Christin's work.
Right now Professor Christin is currently in the middle of writing a book on social media influencers, which has been really fun. Over the past four years, she has been conducting many, many, many interviews with influencers, following the content of several subgroups of influencers (including drama channels, which students are often curious about...), and even starting their own influencer career to figure out what were the most difficult aspects of the job. Turns out, it's really hard to be a social media creator! After a couple of weeks, it was tough to remain consistent with posting, and they did not enjoy receiving critical feedback (and also harassment) from anonymous viewers. She is now writing about what's new about social media careers, and analyzing the economic incentives that platforms create for influencers. Her students know all about this project, and they've been encouraging her for many years now. They even gave her a wonderful gift to celebrate her tenure--a neon sign, like the ones you often see in curated lifestyle influencers' feeds, that says "Professor Christin" (pictured above). It makes her chuckle each time she sees it!
Think you know everything there is to know about Professor Turner? Guess again! Professor Christin is an avid novel reader!
Professor Christin loves reading novels. Everything from sci-fi, historical fiction, contemporary, fantasy, romance, she loves them all! She reads fiction about an hour a day, and is "miserable if [they] don't get to read on a given day. If you have good recommendations, they'll take them!
We are shining a light on Professor Angèle Christin. Scholar. Creator. Educator.