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A conversation between cultural historian and media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan and President Michelle J. Anderson. The two will discuss social media and AI, and their role in the 2024 election cycle and the politics beyond. Reception to follow.
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Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.
He is the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (2018), Intellectual Property: A Very Short Introduction (2017), The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) (2011),Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity ( 2001), and The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System (2004). He also co-edited (with Carolyn Thomas) the collection Rewiring the “Nation”: The Place of Technology in American Studies (2007).
He co-hosts the award-winning podcast Democracy in Danger. Vaidhyanathan is a columnist for The Guardian and has written for many other periodicals, including The New York Times, Wired, The New Republic, Bloomberg View, American Scholar, Reason, Dissent, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine, Slate.com, BookForum, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The New York Times Book Review, and The Nation. He is a frequent contributor to public radio programs. He has appeared on news programs on ABC, BBC, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC, and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on Comedy Central.
In 2015 he was portrayed on stage at the Public Theater in a play called Privacy.
After five years as a professional journalist, he earned a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Vaidhyanathan has also taught at Wesleyan University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Columbia University, New York University, McMaster University, and the University of Amsterdam.
He is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities and a faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He was born and reared in Buffalo, New York, and resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson
Since 2016, Michelle J. Anderson has been the 10th president of Brooklyn College. Under her leadership, the campus established the Brooklyn College Cancer Center, obtained AACSB accreditation for the Murray Koppelman School of Business, initiated the “We Stand Against Hate” program, diversified the faculty and college leadership, opened the Immigrant Student Success Office, launched the Healthcare Career, enriched the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, earned top rankings for the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and opened the state-of-the-art Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts and the Don Buchwald Theater.
As president, Anderson prioritizes mentoring across the campus. She launched the Tow Mentoring Initiative, which allows students to engage in transformative research opportunities with faculty mentors, and which has become a signature campus program. At the same time, under her leadership, the campus Alumni Affairs and Career Services offices have coordinated efforts to develop alumni mentors to help students enter the work world.
Anderson has stewarded Brooklyn College through the COVID-19 pandemic, working hard to protect the health and safety of the community. In development, she focused on student support, raising funds for emergency grants, completion grants, internship stipends, mental health resources, the food pantry, and other critical student services.
Anderson has led Brooklyn College through a time of excellent recognition, including: U.S. News & World Report: #1 “Most Ethnically Diverse College” in the region; 6th “Best for Social Mobility” in the nation; 15th “Best Public Regional University”; and 33rd “Best College for Veterans” in the north; Princeton Review: “Best Value College,” “Environmentally Responsible College”; Brookings Institute: 9th “Best College for Economic Mobility” in the nation; and Business Insider: 11th “Best College for Return on Investment” in the nation.
Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned the Chancellor’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was notes editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge William A. Norris. Anderson has been dean of the CUNY School of Law, professor at Villanova University School of Law, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Yale Law School.
Anderson is a leading scholar on the law of rape and sexual assault. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award. She has also been honored by the Feminist Press with the Susan Rosenberg Zalk Award and by the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society with a Public Service Leadership Award. In 2017, Brooklyn Legal Services gave her a Champion of Justice Award.
