Events

March 5 & 6, 2025

As the technocratic class extends its grip over governance, with ever increasing power held in the hands of the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and X, biopolitics and the alliance with militarization have become central mechanisms for controlling human society and shaping the future. Both the product of and the means of state control, the technocratic visions of a technologically elite class increasingly dictate crisis management, citizenship, and the terms of life. In light of this, the symposium will examine how technocracy consolidates power through technological, political, and economic infrastructures; technology’s claims to neutrality and efficiency; and the possibility of an entirely new elite tier of class structure that is intelligent and technical but not human. Bringing together scholars working at the intersections of technology, power, and governance, this symposium will explore the stakes of technocratic decision-making across multiple domains with a particular focus on the how these are manifested in the present political moment. 

Speakers:

  • Anita Say Chan (Information Science, UIUC)
  • Michelle Huang (English, Northwestern University), "Skin’s Conditions"
  • Brian Jefferson (Geography, UIUC), "Political Not Technical: Neural Nets and the Genealogical Method."
  • Jeffery S. Nesbit (Architecture, Temple University), “Technical Lands and the World (In)visible."
  • Swati Srivastava (Political Science, Purdue University)
  • Brett Zehner (Communication, University of Exeter), "The New White Flight: From the California Ideology to Heartland Brutalism"

 

  • Taisuke L. Wakabayashi (Landscape Architecture, UIUC), "Technocracy in the Nuclear Subterrain"
  • Soumya Dasgupta (Architecture, UIUC), "Mnemotechnical Implants of Architectural Homogenization"
  • Katie Worral (Communication, UIUC), “Data Center Boomtowns: The Politics of Wastelands.”
  • Chris Wiley (Information Science, UIUC), "Technocracy of Visibility: Algorithms, Omission, and Black Trans Men Online"
  • Theodore Dreyfus Ledford (Information Science), "Technocracy, Expertise and Epistemic Democracy: Revaluing Labor Knowledge in AI Governance"