Fall 2025 Colloquium - Elizabeth Petrick

History, Rice University

Title: Embodiment and Mobility in Online Technologies: From Computerized Conferencing to Tablets

Abstract: How do we understand the role of the body when people communicate with each other using computer technologies? Since the beginning of computer networks, the use of computers for human communication has been talked about with almost utopian understandings of disembodiment, of the computer allowing for human bodies to disappear as people interacted in digital space. But, of course, the body is always still present. This talk draws upon two case studies, decades apart, in order to locate and center the human body when people are communicating online. Read more.