Nick Seaver
@nickseaver.website
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anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.
anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.
![SEPTEMBER 29, 2026
4 WORKING
UPCOMING
TUE · OCT 6
Last day to schedule your first office hours visit
READINGS
SHOSHANA ZUBOFF
“Office Technology as Exile and Integration.” (selection). In In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (Basic Books, 1988), 124–56. 113
HUNTER AKRIDGE ET AL.
“‘Oh, You’re Watching Me’: Care Workers’ Experiences of Surveillant Assemblages on the Platform and in the Home.” New Media & Society 28, no. 4 (2026): 1730–49. 131
KAREN LEVY
“RoboTruckers: The Double Threat of AI for Low-Wage Work.” In Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance (Princeton University Press, 2023), 119–51. 141
CHIARA BASSETTI
“Airport Security Contradictions: Interorganizational Entanglements and Changing Work Practices.” Ethnography 19, no. 3 (2018): 288–311. 165
EXERCISE
OH, YOU’RE WATCHING ME
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Watch someone at work. Look at how they look; attend to how they attend. What can you tell about the way they are dividing up and interpreting the things they see? (You can, of course, ask them.) Sketch the scene—it’s okay if you think you can’t draw, try anyway—and describe the basic operations of the work. Your drawing does not have to be figurative. For one way of doing it, look at Morgan O’Hara’s Live Transmission series at www.morganohara.art/live-transmission.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ny7m556yvn5nirqyvyoeeets/bafkreifyer3fouaj2nfluej4hljfmhk43xju3cbhtiktgw2qlk7qs7kfii)
![SEPTEMBER 22, 2026
3 MOVING
UPCOMING
TUE · OCT 6: Last day to schedule your first office hours visit
READINGS
GEORGES PEREC: “Approaches to What?” [1973], in The Everyday Life Reader, edited by Ben Highmore (Routledge, 2002), 176–78; and “Day 1,” in An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, translated by Marc Lowenthal (Wakefield Press, 2010), 5–27. (58)
REBECCA SOLNIT: “The Mind at Three Miles an Hour.” In Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Viking, 2000), 14–29. (72)
STEFAN HIRSCHAUER: “On Doing Being a Stranger: The Practical Constitution of Civil Inattention.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 35, no. 1 (2005): 41–67. (80)
GEORGE YANCY: “Elevators, Social Spaces and Racism: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 34, no. 8 (2008): 843–76. (94)
EXERCISE
STAYING PUT: Go to a public place that you already frequent (either on campus, like the student center, or off-campus, like a coffee shop or museum). Stay put for one hour, immerse yourself in the scene, and take notes — as detailed as you can manage — about what surrounds you (you can draw pictures, make diagrams, whatever you like). Pay particular attention to how people in the setting are or are not attending to each other: Are they conspicuously ignoring each other? Seeking people out? How do they communicate their attentional states to each other? How do you know what you know about them? What might you not know? Do you think people are paying attention to you?](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ny7m556yvn5nirqyvyoeeets/bafkreianq3qss5brv3fxdbgo5kmjc5tnz5wjgo7oimtsbtjczihemf7zui)
![SEPTEMBER 15, 2026
2 READING
READINGS
DAN SINYKIN AND JOHANNA WINANT “Introduction: What Close Reading Is.” In Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2025), 1–10. 15
JESSE CORDES SELBIN “‘Read with Attention’: John Cassell, John Ruskin, and the History of Close Reading.” Victorian Studies 58, no. 3 (2016): 493–521. 21
N. KATHERINE HAYLES “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes.” Profession (2007): 187–99. 37
YAEL SEGALOVITZ “‘Probably Not Book Learned at All’: The Gender of Attentive Reading in Woolf and Lispector.” Poetics Today 47, no. 1 (2026): 29–50. 45
EXERCISE
DROP EVERYTHING AND READ
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While doing the reading this week, keep track of the distractions that interrupt you. These may be things like notifications, friends knocking on the door, or your own mind wandering. Keep your commonplace book nearby and mark them down as they arise. Then make a diagram that represents your data. (There are some nice examples at www.dear-data.com/by-week.)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ny7m556yvn5nirqyvyoeeets/bafkreier6qru3o3kq4fsnrdr5325llfc6kcefzdvdsegjdwvvn22wuzabe)
