In the past, when I thought of where academic journals exist physically, I thought of a specific university space. I now believe that some academic journals mirror the very hiddenness of academia’s curriculum, making academia a tough space to navigate for the newcomer. A reason for my initial thought process is that I was introduced to the idea of journals when I heard the faculty at Saint Louis University (SLU), where I finished my MA, often say that the editor of the African American Review “brought the journal” to SLU. The phrase “brought the journal” drew the image that the department was deeply linked with the workings of the journal even though, as graduate students, we rarely heard about the journal. Interestingly, the title “Saint Louis University” was also nowhere to be found on African American Review’s website. I quickly realized that the journal was most likely just another point factor for department rankings and while the editor of the journal was dedicated to its workings, the English department at SLU didn’t do more than pay the editor for his professorship. More importantly, it was Johns Hopkins University Press that ensured the supply of the journal.

In order to understand the relationship between the journal editor, their institutional affiliation, and the journal’s distribution, I looked into one of the esteemed journals in my research field, Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture.  Pedagogy is published by Duke University Press but its editorial office is in the Department of English, Calvin University. Pedagogy came out with its first issue in 2001 wherein the then editors marked its inception as a necessary step to nurture pedagogical conversations in the field of English studies. While the journal “seeks to reverse the long history of the marginalization of teaching and of the scholarship produced around it,” the majority of its online issues hide behind a paywall. In their first published Editor’s Review, co-editors Jennifer L. Holberg and Marcy Taylor end by thanking “[T]he staff of Duke University Press also have been generous with their guidance and creativity” along with “the moral and financial support of our respective institutions, Calvin College and Central Michigan University” (Holberg and Taylor 5). The words “guidance” and “creativity” give me the impression that most content-based decisions are guided by the press while the editors are responsible for the mission of their institutions given that they provide “financial support”.

As for distribution, Duke University Press works like any other entrepreneurial brand today, they “use a number of strategies to attract new readers, from direct mail campaigns and social media publicity to website development” (“Support for Journal Editors”). However, these strategies don’t seem very personalized. Funnily enough, they share the same Northeast sales representative as that of Columbia University Press: Conor Broughan. Other major journals like Harvard University Press are also marketed by the “Columbia University Press Sales Consortium”. In an interview about the pandemic’s effect on publishing, Conor highlights how individual customer-driven sales can be: “One store in Halifax, Canada, found out when it reopened that a number of its web orders came from women in their 20s who wanted to support the store. It is now ordering with them in mind” (Rosen). Since I had never experienced the publishing industry’s workings, I had not realized how spread out a press that published most of my bibliography can be. In terms of access, while Duke University Press does participate in Open Access, with some of their publications being accessible for all online a week before they’re mailed out, Pedagogy remains a subscription-based journal. Perhaps institutional financial aid is not enough. It is still unclear to me how the subscription money is used since authors don’t get paid for publishing.

Overall, I think all that I know about the labor involved in the production of academic journals has been acquired through my personal experience in academia, eg. conversions with the invisible graduate research assistants to journal editors. If not blackboxing, I think the information about academic journal publications is peripheral, the facts are available but they’re difficult to link together. Where are the agreements between the journal and the press? Can someone like the “woman in her 20s” who might be interested in reading an issue of Pedagogy find how the journal distributes its labor? Can we figure out the logistical details of Calvin University’s financial assistance to Pedagogy or the editors? Graduate students might submit to these journals multiple times but are we really made able to critique any aspect of Pedagogy beyond an angsty book review? Are readers to journals what peer reviewers are to submitters: only valued for the content they provide? As someone who has no experience with academic publishing, I am urged to think that the process is quite hidden.

Throughout readings, we recognize that the concept of commons should be redefined by overcoming Hardin’s misleading fable based on a standard economic narrative, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” First, the fable imposes an either/or choice – either privatization or government intervention – on us. However, as noted in readings, a “tragedy” is not inevitable; rather, “a socially managed commons can be entirely sustainable over long periods of time (Bollier).” In a word, there is a third way we can choose. Second, when it comes to knowledge commons, there is a distinct feature within it compared to traditional commons. Knowledge commons, such as information, scientific discoveries, and creative works, is relatively non-subtractive; this means that one’s use of knowledge commons does not reduce others’ opportunities for the commons. Knowledge (and Cultural) commons do not belong to the logic of scarcity, i.e., the central principle of the free-market myth.

In today’s digital age, with the combination of new technologies and knowledge commons, there have been many attempts to build a new form of inquiry structure. One of them was an open-access platform for scholarly societies, especially within the scientific community. Initially, the motivation behind this movement was economic because, since many academic communities have handed over their journal publishing to private companies, the subscription fee has increased dramatically, which has been a burden for many communities. Also, people in scholarly societies realized that escaping the free-market myth would benefit everyone regarding research and knowledge, namely the principle of “the more, the merrier.”

However, the new technologies enabling us to build networked environments for the knowledge commons could be another barrier for others in two dimensions: (1) Technological advances could restrict information choices and the free flow of ideas (Kranich). Also, (2) digitized information is just a pie in the sky for the marginalized groups who can’t afford the new technologies. Therefore, what we need for knowledge commons available for everyone is democratic governance structures based on communal consensus and openness. In this sense, knowledge commons is not merely a new technical term, but it must be an intellectual obligation.   

Q1) Can we put Academy back to polis?

According to Arendt, the establishment of Plato’s Academy outside of the polis after the trial and death of Socrates indicates the actual break between philosophy and politics (thought/action & theory/practice). This break has been lying within the tradition of Western thought. With the concept of knowledge commons, can we recover the democratic inquiry structure for the participation of the broader publics? Can we overcome the intellectual and cultural incommensurability among the publics with democratic governance?

Q2) Is it possible to share the ownership of the knowledge(cultural) commons between communities, participants, and institutions without discouraging individuals’ creativity and productivity?

Q.3) Is individuals’ benevolence – an act of generosity & “giving it away” – enough to secure and maintain the knowledge(cultural) commons?

In readings, authors argue that a more equitable balance should exist between the market and the commons. However, economic power based on the free-market narrative has invaded and destroyed the political realm. In this context, can we rely on the ethical practices of individuals? Isn’t it too naïve?

Shortly after I enrolled at CUNY, I began receiving emails prompting me to enroll in Blackboard, one of the school’s various learning management systems (LMS). Since I wanted to get off on an organized foot this academic year, I quickly googled “CUNY blackboard” to find the right site and create my account. Instead of leading me to an institutional Blackboard page, my search turned up a few articles about how CUNY had recently made the decision to ditch Blackboard in favor of Brightspace, a different learning management software (CUNY and Missouri State Switch from Blackboard to Brightspace). I learned that the expiration of CUNY’s contract with Blackboard precipitated a reevaluation of faculty, staff, and student needs, and Brightspace was determined to be the better LMS for the school. I was immediately curious about this decision: isn’t Blackboard the more popular LMS? Why would CUNY choose to cut ties with a seemingly successful company? As a clearer picture of Blackboard Inc. emerged through my investigation, I’m inclined to say that CUNY made the right choice. 

Blackboard Inc. was founded in 1996, born from the combination of two education software startups called Blackboard LLC and CourseInfo LLC (“Blackboard Inc.” via Wikipedia). The four founders of these companies — two men per company — have an almost hackneyed backstory: they met in pairs at their respective colleges, and merged the companies when one of the Blackboard founders met a CourseInfo founder at a conference. Within one year of its founding, Blackboard Inc. saw sales of nearly $1 million; and, by 2006, Blackboard was used on more than 65% of U.S. college campuses (A Brief History of Blackboard). Despite buying up many of its LMS competitors, Blackboard Inc. experienced significant debt and a loss of clients in the late 2010’s. In a graphic by ListEdTech, we can see that Blackboard Inc. lost many of these clients to Brightspace. In 2021, Blackboard Inc. became absorbed by Anthology, another LMS, creating an “ed-tech behemoth” (Blackboard, Anthology to Merge, Creating Ed-Tech Behemoth). Inside Higher Ed points out that, given its near ubiquity on college campuses, Blackboard had suffered from widespread complaints about its software and usability from faculty and other higher ed administrators. Blackboard’s popularity also made it a target for LMS competitors. By the end of its independent life, Blackboard Inc. was worth at least $3 billion but had amassed a significant debt of $1.3 billion. As of 2023, ZoomInfo and Zippia, two job information sites, estimated that Blackboard has almost 3,000 employees. On Glassdoor, an employee review forum, some of these employees have left negative reviews citing high turnover at the company due to the merger with Anthology. As the Blackboard Inc. is absorbed into Anthology, I wonder what will happen to many of the company’s employees. 

CUNY has held a contract with Blackboard Inc. since at least 2015, when the countersigned “Blackboard Prepaid Campus Card Agreement” was created. This contract – which includes an extensive implementation manual – outlines CUNY’s use of Blackboard through 2018. I dug further into CUNY’s contracts with Blackboard, and found a document to “Authorize a Contract Extension with Blackboard, Inc. to Ensure Ongoing Access to the Learn System and to Enable the Migration to Blackboard’s Cloud Platform”, extending Blackboard’s contract with CUNY from December 2021 to December 2022. In this document, it is stated that CUNY has been using Blackboard for over twenty years, with Blackboard overseeing 99% of CUNY’s enrollment systems, course registration, and operation of educational programs. Under this contract, CUNY would pay Blackboard almost $3.6 million per year between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. Given CUNY’s longstanding history with Blackboard and the considerable sum of money the university is devoting to the LMS, I’m even more curious about the decision to drop Blackboard Inc. altogether. Blackboard Inc.’s rise from dorm room startup to multibillion dollar, privately owned company is remarkable; and so is its subsequent descent into merger-and-acquisition oblivion. As Blackboard Inc. is subsumed by Anthology and Brightspace takes over CUNY’s learning management systems, I’ll be curious to track each company’s rise and fall. Will CUNY use Brightspace forever, or is this LMS just the latest in a chain of ed-tech programs that jostle for recognition from the seemingly perpetual beast of the higher education business?

Jackson, Mukherjee, Lally et al., and Ensmenger all emphasize the embeddedness of information technology systems in their respective texts. Whether by calling attention to how progress and innovation are layered upon invisible processes of repair or by highlighting the physical and environmental costs associated with housing Bitcoin miners, these texts underscore the material realities of contemporary technological advances. As these readings render visible the physical infrastructures undergirding today’s digital business ventures, they situate these digital advancements in the larger environmental and political landscape of the world—far away from idealized imaginings of the Cloud as essentially free and easily available. Doing so shifts focus to the material costs of the digital age. Not only is the planet heating up faster (if the Cloud was a country it would be the sixth largest electricity consumer on Earth) but the computers and devices required to make use of the Cloud are dependent on mining rare minerals in politically contested regions. It seems impossible then to separate the internet and any businesses that depend on it from the environments in which they are situated. Interrogating these current advancements in terms of their material effects is therefore necessary for any scholarship that engages with these technologies.

Question One: In “Rethinking Repair” Steven J. Jackson gives us the term “broken world thinking” to understand the problems facing new media technologies scholarship. Given the accelerated pace of current technological advancements, are we as scholars in need of new terms to interrogate and explain the shifting digital landscape? Can we realistically keep up with the ethical, environmental, and political questions brought about by these ever-changing technologies?

Question Two: The exploitative practices of cryptocurrency miners described as “infrastructural parasites” by Lally et al. is at odds with how the public views them. The environmental and infrastructural costs needed to support such practices are absent from cultural understandings of this profession. What does the narrative surrounding the internet in a broader sense and cryptocurrency in a more specific one tell us about the reasons why the material costs of these practices remain largely invisible?

Question Three: According to Ensmenger in “The Cloud is a Factory” industrialization and subsequent advances in technology meant that “new machines did not replace human workers; they created new forms of work that required (or at least enabled) the mobilization of new types and categories of labor. Whether it was the new machines that drove the search for new labor or the availability of new labor that encouraged the development of new machines is not relevant. The elements of the new industrial order were dependent on one another. That is what industrialization meant: the recombination of new machines, new organizational forms, and new forms of labor” (39). How might this reasoning help us understand AI now? Can we view advances in this technology form as being driven by the forces of a postindustrial society?

One of my go-to applications for both personal and collaborative annotation is “Hypothes.is”. Hypothesis is a Learning Management System most popularly used through its browser extension that allows you to annotate web pages i.e. anything between New Yorker articles and Project Gutenberg book pages. You can make an account for private annotations or create groups for collaborative work on a webpage. I have most often used it to annotate poems on the Poetry Foundation website since much of my research and creative work involves poems. Along with my academic work, I also assign my students to annotate texts together using Hypothesis which often allows them to engage with each other’s thought processes. The best part about Hypothesis is that many people make their annotations public meaning that you might open a link to a Walt Whitman poem and see what both high school and graduate students have to say about the text. The company itself is big on open access, as it writes on its website: “Our mission is to enable conversations over the world’s knowledge.” 

Hypothesis is an “open source” platform so they take the word “collaboration” pretty seriously. Upon doing some research, I discovered that Dan Whaley, the founder of Hypothesis, developed this software to allow climate scientists to have conversations on climate research through web annotations on ClimateFeedback.com. As someone who had only used Hypothesis in an educational context, it was interesting to see the political kairos of the application since for the longest time, I assumed that it was created out of an academic necessity. More importantly, its functional methodology is not the only collaborative aspect of Hypothesis. They also invite developers to contribute to technical conversations on GitHub, Slack [which I joined and was surprised at how it had less than 100 members], and a mailing list thread. While this deeply collaborative nature made me comfortable in my use of the application, I grew skeptical of the long-term promise of “accessibility” as I saw that Hypothesis is funded by ITHAKA, the same organization that funds JSTOR. 

The most exciting part is that Hypothesis is quite open about the materiality of its processes too. An article posted on their website titled “Beyond Borders: Why We’re Now Also Hosting Data in Canada” (2022) mentions, albeit critically unaware of the very environmental effects the application was born to discuss, the importance of privacy in data centers:

“Having all social annotation data housed within their borders helps Canadian schools comply with national, regional, and institutional data storage policies. Hypothesis will work the way it always has for Canadian users but, behind the scenes, all their data can now sit within Amazon Web Services data centers located in Canada.”

While the point here seems more of legality than privacy, I appreciate the very use of the term “data center” now that I am aware of its infrastructural role. Of course, I am reminded of the very modular nature of the supply chain, and how the seemingly ethical and accessible company relies on the notorious “Amazon” for the physical space it fosters. The truth also is that Hypothesis’ access is restricted to the “knowledge” of those with access to the internet.

Finally, I think it is this realization, as Miriam Posner discusses, of the inevitable reliability of supply chain elements on alienated unknown nodes that makes me feel okay with my use of the Hypothesis. I have used other close-knit and personalizable annotation technologies, like Doccano, which needs to be hosted on platforms like Heroku but it involves the labor of manually creating user profiles for each student, even if it comes with the perks of being in charge of the HTML code of the annotations and being able to export them in the ways I wish. For large-scale use, however, and for the pleasure of global connectivity with annotators, I think Hypothesis is here to stay in my work.

            Like a small insect at work, I plug away at my personal knowledge infrastructure primarily with notebooks. Devoutly, I organize my thoughts and process information with my hands (i.e., when I shop for clothes I rub the fabric between my fingers, or when I purchase knickknacks, I hold them in my palm first to feel their heft and weight). Putting pen to paper, I jump from one idea to another—one plateau to another—processing and generating new conclusions which would otherwise not arrive. Notetaking in this way, as a generative thinking practice, was a door I completely stumbled upon during my second year of teaching when a student’s mom had sent him to school the week before Christmas break with a small gift, a set of MUJI notebooks. My first thought was the price, because teachers are informed every year that they cannot accept gifts greater than $5 (according to the ethics guidelines provided by the city). Luckily, the price tag was accidentally left on the back of the thin packet of notebooks, wrapped in cellophane, reading $2.99. At the time, I didn’t think much of them and packed them away in my closet. 

            It wasn’t until I ran across David Allen’s Getting Things Done—a system I, to this day, still wish I had the discipline and dedication for—that I started to think more seriously about the value of externalizing ideas and setting them aside, as opposed to walking around with them in my head and thinking about them all day long. At first, I thought notebooks would provide a space to ‘offload’ ideas, as Allen advises, but quickly I began to realize that the blank canvas of a page afforded other opportunities (i.e., drawing, diagraming, categorizing, schematizing, and so on). Using my notebooks in this way, they quickly became generative spaces wherein new ideas and connections would arrive, akin to what friends describe during, or moments right after, dreaming. 

            In thinking of this week’s assignment, I could not help but go back to those MUJI notebooks—especially because I have been on the hunt for the perfect (the ideal!) notebook and pen combination ever since. After years of testing, I still rely on MUJI notebooks and find them to be the best for my hand and eyes (my ideal pen is a blue, mass market, Paper Mate that is no longer in production). So, in the spirit of our course, I began to think about where do these notebooks come from? And how are they made? (What are the system of substrates that make it possible for me to purchase MUJI notebooks just a few blocks from the Graduate Center, across the street from Bryant Park?). A quick search revealed that MUJI is short for Mujirushi Ryōhin, a publicly traded corporation based in Tokyo, Japan that was founded in 1980 as a “product brand” of a Japanese supermarket chain, The Seiyu (est. 1946)—which changed the way that I think about MUJI, from a stylish but ‘lowkey’ retailer to a subsidiary of a much larger retail chain, one akin to Walmart or Best Buy. I started to wonder about every aspect of the notebooks materials along with the entirety of its production, from the sourcing of the materials to the shipping across oceans—a scope that would far exceed the 500 word limit of which I am already over. As the semester moves forward, I want to keep thinking about my notebooks and pens, both as conceptual landscapes but also as material objects, considering where they come from and how I perhaps might find a better, but comparable, alternative to minimize the hidden costs associated with stationary goods that are produced half-way around the world and neatly organized by size and color at MUJI store on 5th avenue.  

Google Books is how I search for new academic texts and titles. While there are more targeted, specialized knowledge repositories for academic audiences like JSTOR and ProQuest, for me Google Books’ advantage lies in the fact that it holds approximately 40 million titles in more than 500 hundred languages made up of both fictional and academic texts. It is an ambitious project by the Google team, albeit at times steeped in legal controversies and copyright issues.

Finding texts on Google Books is easy. The “Any document” and “Any time” features let users select what kind of text they are looking for—“Books, Magazines, Newspapers”—and the time frame that text would have been published in. For older users who at times are resistant to change, Google Books allows the option of using their old web interface instead of the newer, updated version. Moreover, as an aid to academics, this service enables citations to be exported.

The true promise of this platform is that anyone, almost anywhere can access this huge library of texts (with the acknowledgement of course that full access to all these texts is not possible). The implicit understanding is that Google is preserving these texts, is reducing the physical space bound books take by storing them in the ether, up in the cloud, or wherever one imagines the internet to exist. This belief, however, is unaware of data centers and the physical space they occupy so that we may free up more space in libraries or our bookshelves at home as we make use of platforms like Google Books. It is ignorant of the maintenance costs of running these data centers and the invisible infrastructure that supports knowledge queries of the digital age.

Google Books’ potential to democratize knowledge is real; the access this service provides is unprecedented. What is also real though is how easily this access can be disrupted through both physical and political means. Internet connectivity issues recently occurred when sharks damaged underwater optic fiber cables. Political changes in the global landscape took place like Russia’s increased internet censorship during the war on Ukraine. What these examples highlight is that internet access—and by default access to knowledge repositories like Google Books—is tenuous. Access can be revoked at any time, outside of a user’s control. Thus, while knowledge is arguably within easier reach of most people their ownership over it has diminished. We can search up titles on Google Books and read texts, but we cannot always be sure that access will not be revoked because of physical or political issues. None of this, however, is meant to be a condemnation of the digital age or the tools that exist because of it. I only wish to check our expectations and interrogate the promise of online platforms like Google Books. The systems in place needed to operate these platforms are vast and it is time that we as users were more aware of what we take part in using these online knowledge repositories.

Firstly, I recommend everyone start by reading the online articles instead of the PDFs. The former are more engaging and can pave the way for a deeper understanding upon subsequent readings. 

Ned Rossiter’s introductory chapter in “Software, Infrastructure, Labor: A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares” presents his definition of infrastructure. Rossiter describes infrastructure as an underlying system comprised of elements, categories, standards, protocols, and operations, which many note becomes evident only during moments of failure and breakdown. This highlights to the class that infrastructure acts as a significant but silent engine in the background, emerging to prominence mainly when it malfunctions or requires an evaluation. Rossiter suggests that logistical media play a pivotal role in contemporary capitalism. It manages the movement of goods, people, and information across global networks and has been integral since the inception of capitalism. 

Rossiter introduces the concept of “soft infrastructure,” which he breaks down into four components: 

• Algorithmic architectures, such as the software used by Apple, Amazon, and SAP, designed to create “supple chains.” 
• Communication and transport infrastructure, which involves traditional means like ships and planes as well as interpersonal communication for the physical movement of items. 
• Formal and informal labor sectors, which encompass parts of the supply chain responsible for innovation and troubleshooting. 
• Protocol control, which is a set of rules devised by individuals to oversee the usage of the supply chain. These guidelines can influence our perceptions, actions, and interactions. 

Question: How does the concept of logistical media shed light on the relationship between infrastructure, labor, and imperialism? 

In “See No Evil” by Miriam Posner, she delves into the intricacies of production processes, inspired by her curiosity about the journey of a chocolate bar to her minibar. Posner highlights that the logistics involved in a product’s journey can substantially augment its value. For instance, gold becomes pricier due to its logistical journey rather than its intrinsic weight. Posner also mentions the term “black boxing,” which refers to the phenomenon where the complexities of scientific and technical endeavors are concealed by their very success. As an illustration, with shipping containers, the content matters less rather than its intended destination. 

Posner’s perspective on corporate evasion of accountability is compelling: “When a company like Santa Monica Seafood claims ignorance of the labor and environmental issues within its supply chains, it’s plausible. A company can possess an extraordinarily efficient supply chain without fully understanding its intricacies. This limited knowledge might not only be feasible but could also be an essential characteristic of global capitalism.” 

Question: Should we allow companies to claim ignorance about labor and environmental malpractices on account of the black boxing phenomenon, all for the sake of capitalism and consumer satisfaction? 

In another article titled “The Software That Shapes Workers’ Lives,” Posner discusses SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing), a widely-used enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, or as termed earlier, an “algorithmic architecture.” 

Posner reiterates that companies might not always be aware of the origins of their components. This lack of knowledge is a built-in feature of how supply chains operate. The software used for managing these chains typically lacks ethical considerations; its primary function is to optimize speed and minimize cost. 

Highlighting labor injustices, Posner cites an example: “For instance, China Labor Watch discovered that workers in Heyuan City, China, tasked with producing Disney’s Princess Sing & Sparkle Ariel Bath Doll—sold at a retail price of $26.40—work twenty-six days a month. They assemble between eighteen hundred and twenty-five hundred dolls daily, earning a mere cent for each doll.” 

Question: How does the emphasis on scalability in a globalized economy contribute to a widespread disregard for accountability and responsibility across industries? 

Should SAP shift its focus to prioritize ethics over profit? 

I’m still in search of a “perfect” academic note-taking system, but I’ve gone from taking notes by hand to typing on Pages and annotating PDFs using GoodNotes and Preview on Mac. I used to rely heavily on papers and pens, but I shortly abandoned it after realizing that writing by hand is too slow for taking notes in a seminar. I still carry a notebook; sometimes, writing in a notebook is very useful. But it’s always the attempt to find stuff later—flipping through hundreds of pages of illegible handwriting—that is dreadful and frustrating. So, I’ve turned to digital note-taking, which allows me to search my notes, whether I’m writing, typing, or marking up a PDF.

I use Pages, which automatically saves as I work, for taking in-the-moment notes in a seminar and noting my questions/responses/thoughts on class readings — all in one place. In my individual reading, I switch between using Preview and GoodNotes on an iPad or as they allow me to annotate PDFs easily. Since CUNY provides Microsoft Office 365 for us, I also tried using OneNotes. However, having multiple CUNY email addresses due to various campus affiliations had caused me to misplace my notes. Trying to sign in to each account and dealing with the two-step verification to look for my notes was time-consuming and didn’t always work. My files won’t sync across devices sometimes, which is something, as of yet, I haven’t experienced with using iCloud. In this sense, I can control where to store and how to arrange my notes and sources — yet within the limits of the platforms and assumptions that these technological tools will continue to function properly, which is an aspect I don’t necessarily have control of. Regarding technical bugs, I used Zotero to organize and manage sources and citations in the past. However, I didn’t have much success with it. It kept crashing, and some of my latest annotations would go missing after my device was updated to the latest IOS version. I ended up creating different folders (either on my desktop or on Google Drive) and storing all my PDFs there. I copy and paste citations on a Word Doc to keep track of citations. I’m aware that this might not be the most effective approach to maintaining a personal notes database in the long run as I discover and accumulate more sources, so I’m also willing to give Zotero another try.

In terms of finding scholarly articles and sources for research, I often look at the bibliography from any class readings that I find particularly useful to see who the author is citing. If I find an interesting text, I’ll also look at the bibliography of that piece, continuing this process in hopes of mapping out the scholarly conversations the authors are engaged in. I mainly use the databases of our library, which select and filter sources indexed by specialists and indicate how I can access a particular text. I will also use Google Scholar, which is quite effective in finding precise quotes and phrases. However, I’m always curious (perhaps also a little skeptical) about Google Scholar’s ranking algorithms and scope. It doesn’t offer a collection of carefully selected sources as our library systems do, so I’m always curious about the list of databases it covers. I’m interested in continuing to explore, think, and complicate questions surrounding my personal knowledge infrastructure, particularly the conditions that enable its becoming — as a way to foster infrastructural awareness and “intelligibility,” as Lisa Parks puts it, to become more aware of how I participate in and am complicit with knowledge production processes.

When it comes to knowledge infrastructure, such as schools, texts, academic programs, conferences, and digital tools, I have been an end-user but have never paid careful attention to them before. In short, they have been invisible to me, even though I have always been using and surrounded by them all the time. Therefore, I must rethink and reposition myself, from a user to a participant, to understand and answer the questions: 1) What are my personal knowledge infrastructures? Where are they? 2) How are they functioning? and 3) How can I actively and critically engage with knowledge infrastructure? 

If I could define knowledge infrastructure as an entity that produces, collects, accumulates, maintains, and transfers knowledge between people, generation to generation, then its shape has been dramatically transformed through history: Groups of Individuals – Academia/Schools – Religious institutions/Church – Government/Public school system – Private corporations – Digital form of information. This means that knowledge infrastructures have been changing and interacting with social/political/cultural demands.

As a user of knowledge infrastructures, I have experienced old ones (school, texts, printouts, email, online journals, and online bookstores) and have been struggling with using new ones (coding programs, the CUNY system, online classes). However, in terms of actual usage, it is not easy for me to draw a sharp line between the old and new ones, since they are always overlapping and involving each other, even in a class. For example, one of my classes this semester is an online class, so I use Microsoft Teams; but I read a physical textbook that was delivered from Amazon.com. Plus, I must be familiar with Python, a coding language, to do my assignments every week in Google Colab. My knowledge infrastructure, in this respect, is seamlessly woven together. Even Amazon’s supply chains should be included in the list.

This embeddedness of infrastructure also sways its user’s position. I could function as a part of the infrastructure simply by paying tuition, buying goods, or working as a TA or RA at the institutions; these activities would help the infrastructure secure its maintenance and strengthen its influence. The problem is that, regardless of my intention, I could be fortifying corporations’ dominant influences on knowledge infrastructures as well; what makes the problem worse is that I cannot avoid using this system because there are no available alternatives. Whenever I use CUNY’s system as a student, I automatically become a consumer of Microsoft products. The strategy of corporations is transplanting their system, which is another infrastructure, into knowledge infrastructure and monopolizing it, and this forces users to adjust their habitual practice to the monopolized system. Corporations do not have to monopolize knowledge itself, but they invisibly support users/participants by generously offering their system.

This trend will never disappear if academic communities limit their role in producing knowledge and only seek efficiency for it. Also, we cannot just deny and refuse the existing knowledge infrastructure. Doing so could be a ‘one step forward, two steps backward’ mistake. Instead, in this connection, I think Alan Liu’s argument of being a lightly-antifoundationalist should be a possible lead to the problem: “it is precisely the ability to treat infrastructure not as a foundation, a given, but instead as a tactical medium that opens the possibility of critical infrastructure studies as a mode of cultural studies.”