On Research “Worthy of the Present”

Abstract

How do we do our work as scholars in an age of electronic reason and computational media and under media-saturated, algorithmic conditions? In this article I suggest that the age of electronic reason, the ubiquity of computational media, and our condition as algorithmic are not only valid objects of study for humanists, digital humanists, and post-humanists today. As scholars, we are also and always/already affected by these so-called objects. We live and work with/in them, a situation that has methodological implications. By visiting concepts and arguments of thinkers like Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Achille Mbembe, and Isabelle Stengers, I ask: how not to be indifferent to knowing that algorithms repeat age-old patterns of in- and exclusion? How to act on possibilities for change as critical and creative researchers? How does research worthy of our time look?