+++Unfortunate news: Hannah Schmedes’ talk this Wednesday has to be cancelled due to illness. We hope to find an alternative date.+++
Join us this Wednesday, October 16th, from 14-16 hrs (German time) for the first RUSTLab lecture of this winter term. Hannah Schmedes will present her work on “Reweaving Knowledge. Feminist Interventions and Infrastructural Biases in Wikipedia”.
This lecture explores the structural biases embedded in Wikipedia’s infrastructure and examines how feminist interventions can address systemic issues of exclusion and representation. Drawing on queer*feminist critiques of digital infrastructures and socio-technical systems, it analyzes Wikipedia’s epistemological frameworks, such as relevance criteria, source legitimacy, and editorial hierarchies, that disproportionately marginalize non-male, non-Western, and non-heteronormative voices. Using examples from feminist edit-a-thons and collaborative writing practices, the lecture showcases how feminist scholars and activists are reweaving knowledge and infrastructures to create more inclusive and equitable information systems.
Hannah Schmedes is a PhD candidate in Gender Media Studies at Ruhr University Bochum. She is a researcher in the project “Bicycle Media. Cooperative Media of Mobility” at the CRC “Media of Cooperation” in Siegen. Her dissertation explores how gender politics are coded into infrastructures and platforms. She received her M.A. in European Media Studies from the University of Potsdam, which followed a B.A. in Cultural Studies and Philosophy at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. In addition to her academic work, Schmedes is part of the feminist collective Wiki Riot Squad, where she organizes writing workshops on Wikipedia’s publishing and interface policies.
Location: on campus (MB 4/165) and Zoom
Zoom Link
PW: RUSTlab
You will find additional resources and information on this term’s guiding theme Fabrication here on our website.