PhD Year 3 · Spring 2031

Jan 13 – May 9, 2031 · 4 courses

Global tech justice, comparative IP, AI auditing & civil rights, defense prep

DIS-903 — DIS 903 · Dissertation Defense Preparation

DIS pillar · PhD Year 3 · Spring 2031

Course MOC. Reading list compiled from the 5-year curriculum.

Essential books

★ Vick & Furlong — The Academic Job Search Handbook
★ Karen Kelsky — The Professor Is In
★ Leonard Cassuto — The Graduate School Mess
★ William Germano — From Dissertation to Book
★ James Lang — Life on the Tenure Track

Supplementary books

☆ bell hooks — Teaching to Transgress
☆ Paulo Freire — Pedagogy of the Oppressed
☆ Parker Palmer — The Courage to Teach
☆ Edward Said — Representations of the Intellectual
☆ C. Wright Mills — The Sociological Imagination

Papers (47)

1. Carter, Susan (2008). Examining the Doctoral Thesis: A Discussion of the Purposes and Nature of the Viva" (verify)

2. Tinkler, Penny, and Carolyn Jackson (2000). In the Dark? Preparing for the PhD Viva" (verify)

3. Tinkler, Penny, and Carolyn Jackson (2004). Examining the Doctorate: Institutional Policy and the PhD Examination Process in Britain" (verify)

4. Crossouard, Barbara (2011). Doctoral Identities in Formation: Feedback as Sociocultural Practice" (verify)

5. Trafford, Vernon, and Shosh Leshem (2009). Doctorateness as a Threshold Concept" (verify)

6. Trafford, Vernon, and Shosh Leshem (2008). Frame Your Research and Win the Viva" (verify)

7. Morley, Louise, Fiona Eraut, Rosemary Aynsley, and Christopher Crossouard (2002). Variations in Assessment Criteria and Processes in Doctoral Examinations" (verify)

8. Kelsky, Karen (2015). How to Write a Job Letter That Gets You an Interview" (verify)

9. Vick, Julia Miller, Jennifer S. Furlong, and Rosanne Keane (2016). The Academic Job Search: A Structured Approach to Entering the Market" (verify)

10. Cassuto, Leonard (2015). The Advisor Problem" (verify)

11. Cassuto, Leonard (2013). How Graduate Students Are Failing Our Undergraduates" (verify)

12. Lang, James M. (2005). Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year" (verify)

13. Bousquet, Marc (2002). The Waste Product of Graduate Education: Toward a Dictatorship of the Flexible" (verify)

14. Brown, Kathleen M. (2011). The Successful Academic Job Search" (verify)

15. Germano, William (2001). Is Your Dissertation Worth Publishing?" (verify)

16. Germano, William (2013). Revising Your Dissertation" (verify)

17. Germano, William (2016). Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious About Serious Books" (verify)

18. Day, Abby (2010). Revising the Dissertation for the Book Audience" (verify)

19. Trimbur, John (2002). Delivering the Message: Typography and the Materiality of Writing" (verify)

20. Harvey, David (2002). From the Dissertation to the First Book: Practical and Theoretical Considerations" (verify)

21. Luey, Beth (2004). Revising Your Dissertation for Publication" (verify)

22. Belcher, Wendy Laura (2019). Reflections on Ten Years of Teaching the Twelve-Week Article Writing Workshop" (verify)

23. Silvia, Paul J. (2018). How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing" (verify)

24. Sword, Helen (2012). Stylish Academic Writing" (verify)

25. Day, Abby (2009). Getting Published: Strategies for Article Placement in Peer-Reviewed Journals" (verify)

26. Murray, Rowena, and Sarah Moore (2006). The Handbook of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach" (verify)

27. Freire, Paulo (1968/2000). Chapter 2: The Banking Concept of Education" (verify)

28. Palmer, Parker J. (1997). The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching" (verify)

29. Brookfield, Stephen D. (1990). Using Critical Incidents to Explore Learners' Assumptions" (verify)

30. Brookfield, Stephen D. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher" (verify)

31. Said, Edward W. (1993/1994). The Intellectual as Exile: Expatriates and Marginals" (verify)

32. Mills, C. Wright (1959). On Intellectual Craftsmanship" (verify)

33. Nussbaum, Martha C. (2009). Education for Profit, Education for Freedom" (verify)

34. Sandel, Michael J. (2009). Markets and Morals" (verify)

35. Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System" (verify)

36. Inoue, Asao B. (2015). Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future" (verify)

37. Sensoy, Özlem, and Robin DiAngelo (2009). Developing Social Justice Literacy: An Open Letter to Our Faculty Colleagues" (verify)

38. Royster, Jacqueline Jones (1996). When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own" (verify)

39. hooks, bell (1994). Confronting Class in the Classroom" (verify)

40. Turner, Caroline Sotello Viernes (2002). Women of Color in Academe: Living with Multiple Marginality" (verify)

41. Cardon, Peter W., and Jolanta Aritz Hall (2021). Artificial Intelligence in Business Communication: Opportunities, Challenges, and Pedagogical Considerations" (verify)

42. Volokh, Eugene (2003). Thinking About Plagiarism in the Age of the Internet" (verify)

43. Bazerman, Charles (2004). Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts" (verify)

44. Bazerman, Charles (2004). Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People" (verify)

45. Inoue, Asao B. (2019). How Do We Language So People Stop Killing Each Other, Or What Do We Do About White Language Supremacy?" (verify)

46. Royster, Jacqueline Jones, and Gesa E. Kirsch (2012). Methodological Estrangement and Rhetorical Reasoning in Feminist Rhetorical Studies" (verify)

47. Selfe, Cynthia L., and Gail E. Hawisher (2007). Exceeding the Bounds of the Interview: Ethics, Methodological Innovation, and New Media" (verify)

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

XD Ng, C. (2022). Our missing hearts. Penguin Press.

[Equity + Communication + IP] A near-future U.S. under "PACT" laws polices Asian Americans, censors books, and removes children from "subversive" families. Ng follows a 12-year-old son searching for his mother, a poet whose verse is repurposed as protest. The pillars meet in censorship (communication regulation), targeted ethnic persecution (equity), and the strange afterlife of a poem as both political IP and contraband. A novel about how authorship and political speech are inseparable in a surveillance state. XD Jemisin, N. K. (2016). The obelisk gate. Orbit.

[Equity + Communication + AI] Jemisin's middle volume widens the cross-pillar argument: the obelisks are revealed as ancient AI infrastructure built by an earlier, oppressed orogene class. The pillars synthesize in the network's politics—who built the machine intelligence, and at what cost. A novel about how communication systems, AI, and slavery rhyme across millennia. XD North, C. (2017). The end of the day. Orbit.

[Equity + Communication + AI] The Harbinger of Death travels the world delivering greetings and warnings—a corporate communications role for the apocalypse. North binds the inequity of who receives the harbinger's visit (climate refugees, displaced indigenous peoples) to the soft AI of bureaucratic protocol. The pillars meet in the email signature. XP Knausgaard, K. O. (2009). My struggle: Book one (D. Bartlett, Trans.). Archipelago Books. (Original work published in Norwegian)

Illuminates Communication: Knausgaard's 3,600-page autofictional project is the limit case of what self-narration can be in the age of the feed. Placed beside platform-studies work on personal branding and confessional content, My Struggle illuminates the structural pressure to convert life into ongoing text. A cross-pollination for thinking about the autofiction industry and the platform economy.

Nonfiction

XD Citron, D. K. (2014). Hate crimes in cyberspace. Harvard University Press.

[Communication + Equity + AI] Citron documents the gendered and racialized character of online harassment and proposes legal and platform interventions. The pillars synthesize through the platform's communication architecture as a site of harm production. XD Florini, S. (2019). Beyond hashtags: Racial politics and Black digital networks. NYU Press.

[Communication + Equity + AI] Florini documents the cross-platform circulation of Black political discourse from Twitter to podcasts. The pillars synthesize in the network rather than in the single platform. XD Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.

[Equity + Communication] Collins articulates the "matrix of domination" and theorizes Black feminist epistemology as a communicative practice. The pillars synthesize in the standpoint theory of Black women's intellectual labor. Canonical. XP Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state. Yale University Press.

Illuminates AI/Equity: Scott's foundational text on legibility is the canonical cross-pollination with critical-AI scholarship. A primer for any data-justice unit.

PHD-903 — PHD 903 · Global Tech Justice and Comparative Approaches

PHD pillar · PhD Year 3 · Spring 2031

Course MOC. Reading list compiled from the 5-year curriculum.

Essential books

★ Mejias & Couldry — Data Grab
★ Abeba Birhane — Algorithmic Colonization of Africa
★ Sabelo Mhlambi — From Rationality to Relationality* (Carr Center)
★ Karen Hao — Empire of AI
★ Kukutai & Taylor — Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Supplementary books

☆ Margaret Roberts — Censored
☆ Kai-Fu Lee — AI Superpowers
☆ Amy Webb — The Big Nine
☆ Mohamed, Png & Isaac — Decolonial AI
☆ Simon Chesterman — We, the Robots?

Papers (50)

1. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data's Rel. ** Television & New Media, 20(4), 336–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476418796632

Argues that data extraction from human life constitutes a new form of colonialism structurally analogous to historic land appropriation, embedding subjects within capitalist relations through continuous data harvesting.

2. Birhane, A. (2020). Algorithmic Colonization of Africa.. ** SCRIPTed: A Journal of Law, Technology & Society, 17(2), 389–409. https://doi.org/10.2966/scrip.170220.389

Examines how AI systems developed in the Global North reproduce colonial logics when deployed in African contexts, erasing indigenous epistemologies and creating new asymmetries of power and knowledge.

3. Thatcher, J., O'Sullivan, D., & Mahmoudi, D. (2016). Data Colonialism Through Ac. ** Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34(6), 990–1006. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816633195 (verify)

Applies Harvey's "accumulation by dispossession" to data capture practices, arguing that everyday digital interactions constitute a form of enclosure that benefits platform capital at the expense of ordinary users.

4. Ricaurte, P. (2019). Data Epistemologies, the Coloniality of Power, and Resistan. ** Television & New Media, 20(4), 350–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640 (verify)

Draws on Quijano's coloniality of power to theorize how data infrastructures reproduce colonial hierarchies of knowledge, proposing community data epistemologies as sites of resistance.

5. Mejias, U. A., & Couldry, N. (2019). Datasphere: On the Nature of the Emerging D. ** Big Data & Society, 6(2), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719879632 (verify)

Introduces the concept of the "datasphere" as a new global layer of social organization enabling data colonialism, tracing its geopolitical implications for sovereignty and subjectivity.

6. Zuboff, S. (2019). Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge of Collective Actio. ** New Labor Forum, 28(1), 10–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1095796018819461 (verify)

Outlines the core logic of surveillance capitalism — behavioral modification through data prediction products — and argues it poses a fundamental threat to democratic self-determination requiring collective regulatory responses.

7. Kwet, M. (2019). Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the G. ** Race & Class, 60(4), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396818823172 (verify)

Argues that US technology corporations exercise a new form of digital imperialism over the Global South through control of software, hardware, and connectivity infrastructure, proposing digital sovereignty as a counter-strategy.

8. Mhlambi, S. (2020). From Rationality to Relationality: Ubuntu as an Ethical and. ** Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Discussion Paper, Harvard Kennedy School. (verify)

Proposes Ubuntu philosophy — emphasizing communal personhood and relationality — as an alternative ethical foundation for AI governance capable of addressing harms that Western rationality-based frameworks systematically ignore.

9. Birhane, A., & Cummins, F. (2019). Algorithmic Injustices: Towards a Relational. ** arXiv preprint, arXiv:1912.07376. (verify)

Critiques the individualist ontology underlying mainstream AI fairness frameworks and argues for relational ethical approaches grounded in African philosophy to address collective and structural harms.

10. Adams, R. (2021). Can Artificial Intelligence Be Decolonized?. ** Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46(1–2), 176–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2020.1840225 (verify)

Examines whether and how AI can be "decolonized," surveying proposals from data sovereignty to value pluralism, while questioning whether incremental reform is sufficient given structural dependencies.

11. Strait, A., & Burnham, M. (2022). African Data Governance: Between Sovereignty a. ** Journal of African Law, 66(3), 421–445. (verify)

Maps the landscape of African data governance frameworks at national and continental (African Union) levels, assessing tensions between data sovereignty aspirations and fragmented implementation, with comparative analysis of the AU Data Policy Framework.

12. Gwagwa, A., Kazim, E., Hilliard, A., & Aruleba, K. (2022). The Role of the Afric. ** Patterns, 3(4), 100462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100462 (verify)

Argues that Ubuntu offers substantive normative resources for global AI inclusion debates, assessing how African value systems can reshape international AI ethics standards beyond tokenistic inclusion.

13. Abebe, R., Aruleba, K., Birhane, A., Kingsley, S., Obaido, G., Remy, S. L., & Sa. ** Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), 329–341. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445897 `(

Challenges dominant narratives about African data scarcity and the necessity of cross-border data sharing, presenting counternarratives that foreground African researchers' own perspectives on data governance and ownership.

14. Bhandari, V., & Bhargava, K. (2022). India's National AI Strategy and the Challe. ** Observer Research Foundation Occasional Paper, (verify)

Reviews India's NITI Aayog AI strategy documents, assessing their approach to responsible AI, data governance, and how they position India in global AI geopolitics, highlighting gaps in rights-based frameworks.

15. Pal, J. (2023). India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act: An Analysis.. ** Internet Policy Review, 12(3). https://doi.org/10.14763/2023.3.XXXX (verify)

Provides a critical legal analysis of India's 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act, comparing its consent and enforcement mechanisms to the EU GDPR and arguing that sovereignty concerns weaken individual rights protections.

16. Marda, N., & Narayan, S. (2020). Emotion Recognition Technology in India: Civil. ** First Monday, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i1.10298 (verify)

Examines civil society responses to emotion recognition AI deployment in Indian schools and public spaces, analyzing advocacy strategies and their effectiveness in shaping regulatory responses.

17. Rai, A., & Pillai, S. (2019). Digital Identity and Infrastructural Power: Aadhaa. ** South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(6), 1178–1194. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2019.1677289 (verify)

Analyzes India's Aadhaar biometric ID system as a form of infrastructural power that reconfigures state-citizen relations, examining cases of exclusion and surveillance it enables.

18. Gurumurthy, A., & Bharthur, D. (2018). Democracy and the Algorithmic Turn.. ** Sur: International Journal on Human Rights, 15(27), 39–51. (verify)

Examines how algorithmic governance is reshaping democratic participation in developing countries, with particular attention to India's digital ecosystem and the implications for marginalized communities.

19. Masiero, S., & Das, S. (2019). Datafying India: Insights on the Sociotechnical I. ** Information Technology for Development, 25(3), 441–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2018.1524285 (verify)

Theorizes India's emerging "data state" through the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, tracing how Aadhaar and related digital infrastructure construct particular visions of citizenship and development.

20. Roberts, M. E. (2020). Resilience to Online Censorship.. ** Annual Review of Political Science, 23, 401–419. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-032837 (verify)

Reviews empirical evidence on how citizens navigate and resist internet censorship, focusing on China's Great Firewall, and assesses whether resilience undermines or reinforces authoritarian information control.

21. Sheehan, M. (2023). China's AI Regulations and How They Get Made.. ** Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report, (verify)

Maps the process by which China's AI regulations — including deepfakes regulation, recommendation algorithm rules, and generative AI provisions — are produced, identifying key bureaucratic actors and their interests.

22. Creemers, R. (2022). China's Emerging Data Protection Framework.. ** Journal of Cybersecurity, 8(1), tyac011. https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyac011 (verify)

Analyzes China's Personal Information Protection Law and Data Security Law within the broader architecture of Chinese cybersecurity law, assessing differences from and similarities to the EU GDPR approach.

23. Daum, J. (2019). China's Social Credit System: Separating Myth from Reality.. ** The China Project, / ChinaLawTranslate. (verify)

Debunks Western media myths about a unified "social credit score," instead describing China's social credit system as a fragmented set of local experiments, corporate scoring systems, and sectoral blacklists.

24. Dou, E., & Huang, Z. (2022). How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media. is the likely source — verify authorship Abstract:

Presents large-scale evidence of government-fabricated social media content in China, analyzing the content strategy (distraction over argument) as a tool of opinion control.

25. Kania, E. B. (2019). Chinese Military Innovation in Artificial Intelligence.. ** Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, (verify)

Assesses China's strategy for military AI development, civil-military fusion policies, and their implications for global AI competition and arms control.

26. Vinhas, U., & Mendes, L. S. (2020). Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD). ** Computer Law & Security Review, 37, 105428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2020.105428 (verify)

Provides a comprehensive legal analysis of Brazil's Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados, situating it within regional and global data protection frameworks and identifying implementation challenges for the ANPD authority.

27. Castets-Renard, C. (2022). Artificial Intelligence Regulation in Latin America:. ** Law, Innovation and Technology, 14(2), 382–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/17579961.2022.2128601 (verify)

Surveys AI governance efforts across Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, identifying patterns of regulatory fragmentation, civil society influence, and divergence from EU-style approaches.

28. Ricaurte, P. (2022). Toward a Framework for Data Sovereignty in Latin America.. ** Global Media and Communication, 18(1), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/17427665211066034 (verify)

Develops a framework for data sovereignty suited to Latin American contexts, drawing on indigenous knowledge traditions and critiques of platform capitalism to propose community-centered alternatives.

29. Birhane, A., & Vinha, R. (2022). Values Encoded in Machine Learning Research fro. ** arXiv preprint, arXiv:2206.07841. (verify)

Analyzes the values embedded in machine learning papers from Global South institutions, finding persistent reproduction of Western epistemic norms and proposing mechanisms for value-pluralist AI research.

30. Reia, J. (2021). Platform Governance in Brazil: Balancing Rights and Regulation.. ** Internet Policy Review, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2021.2.1556 (verify)

Examines Brazil's platform governance landscape — including the Marco Civil da Internet — and debates over content moderation, fake news legislation, and the role of civil society in shaping digital rights.

31. Evangelista, R., & Bruno, F. (2019). WhatsApp and Political Instability in Brazi. ** Internet Policy Review, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1434 (verify)

Investigates the role of WhatsApp as a vector for targeted political misinformation in the 2018 Brazilian elections, analyzing group message dynamics and their relationship to political radicalization.

32. Carroll, S. R., Garba, I., Figueroa-Rodríguez, O. L., Holbrook, J., Lovett, R.,. ** Data Science Journal, 19(1), 43. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-043

Articulates four CARE principles — Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics — as a framework for Indigenous data governance complementing the FAIR principles, centering Indigenous peoples as active stewards.

33. Kukutai, T., & Taylor, J. (Eds.). (2016). Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an. ** ANU Press, [Chapter: "Data Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples: Current Practice and Future Needs."] (verify)

Introduces the Indigenous data sovereignty agenda, surveying how Indigenous communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US are asserting control over data about their peoples, lands, and cultures.

34. Walter, M., & Suina, M. (2019). Indigenous Data, Power and Self-Determination.. ** Critical Public Health, 29(5), 541–552. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2018.1551261 (verify)

Argues that Indigenous data sovereignty is inseparable from political self-determination, examining how settler-colonial data infrastructures reproduce dispossession and how Indigenous methodologies contest these frameworks.

35. Snipp, C. M. (2016). What Does Data Sovereignty Imply: What Does It Look Like in. **

Explores the practical implications of data sovereignty for American Indian/Alaska Native peoples, examining census data, tribal databases, and legal frameworks governing Indigenous data rights in the US context.

36. Wilkins-Laflamme, S., & Kukutai, T. (2021). Revisiting Indigenous Data Sovereign. ** AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 17(3), 402–411. (verify)

Revisits data sovereignty frameworks in the context of COVID-19, examining how pandemic data collection exacerbated or created opportunities to contest Indigenous data governance challenges.

37. Ramirez, R. (2020). Centering Indigenous Voices in Data Narratives.. ** AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 16(3), 260–271. (verify)

Examines how Indigenous communities are using participatory data methods to reclaim narrative authority over statistical representations, countering deficit-framing in government datasets.

38. Roberts, H., Cowls, J., Morley, J., Taddeo, M., Wang, V., & Floridi, L. (2021).. ** AI & Society, 36(1), 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-00992-2 (verify)

Provides a comprehensive analysis of China's AI governance ecosystem — from national strategy documents to ethics guidelines — comparing it to EU and US approaches and examining Chinese AI's global implications.

39. Sheehan, M. (2022). The US-China AI Governance Gap: Regulating Emerging Technolo. ** Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Working Paper, (verify)

Analyzes divergences between US and Chinese AI governance philosophies, examining how regulatory fragmentation threatens global AI safety and proposing mechanisms for limited cooperation.

40. Floridi, L., Cowls, J., King, T. C., & Taddeo, M. (2020). How to Design AI for S. ** Science and Engineering Ethics, 26(3), 1771–1796. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00213-5 (verify)

Identifies seven factors — interpretability, justifiability, accuracy, fallibility, causality, robustness, and trustworthiness — essential to designing AI for social good, comparing European, Chinese, and US frameworks against these criteria.

41. UNESCO. (2021). Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.. ** UNESCO, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381137 (verify)

Sets out the first global normative framework on AI ethics adopted by 193 member states, covering human rights, environmental sustainability, inclusion, and multi-stakeholder governance, with implementation guidance for member states.

42. Cath, C., Wachter, S., Mittelstadt, B., Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2018). Artifi. ** Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(2), 505–528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9901-7 (verify)

Compares national AI strategies and ethics documents from the US, EU, and UK, identifying shared commitments to the "good society" while exposing differences in regulatory philosophy and emphasis on rights versus innovation.

43. Jobin, A., Ienca, M., & Vayena, E. (2019). The Global Landscape of AI Ethics Gui. ** Nature Machine Intelligence, 1(9), 389–399. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0088-2 (verify)

Conducts a systematic analysis of 84 AI ethics guidelines from across the globe, mapping convergences (around principles like transparency and fairness) and divergences (around privacy, autonomy, and the identity of duty-bearers).

44. Mohamed, S., Png, M.-T., & Isaac, W. (2020). Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as. ** Philosophy & Technology, 33(4), 659–684. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00405-8

Applies decolonial theory — coloniality, modernity, and resistance — to AI development, arguing that dominant AI practices perpetuate colonial relations and proposing decolonial foresight as a methodological corrective.

45. Drahos, P. (2016). A Philosophy of Intellectual Property.. ** ANU Press, [Article excerpt: "Intellectual Property and Global Governance of Knowledge."] (verify)

Examines how intellectual property regimes function as instruments of global knowledge governance, tracing the TRIPS agreement's impacts on developing countries and Indigenous knowledge systems.

46. Boateng, B. (2011). The Copyright Thing Doesn't Work Here: Adinkra and Kente Clo. ** University of Minnesota Press, [Article excerpt from introduction/chapter 1.] (verify)

Challenges the universality of Western copyright frameworks through the case of Ghanaian Adinkra and Kente cloth, demonstrating how IP law fails to protect collective Indigenous cultural production and reproduce colonial logics.

47. Wasserman, H. (2020). Digital Media Geopolitics and the African Information Land. ** Media, Culture & Society, 42(7–8), 1237–1253. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720958643 (verify)

Examines how global digital media geopolitics shape Africa's information landscape, focusing on platform dependence, Chinese infrastructure investment, and the implications for media freedom and public communication.

48. Couldry, N. (2020). The Price of Connection: 'Surveillance Capitalism' and the C. ** Economic Sociology: The European Electronic Newsletter, 21(3), 4–12. (verify)

Critiques Zuboff's surveillance capitalism framework from a data colonialism perspective, arguing it underestimates the systemic and colonial nature of platform data extraction and its uneven global impacts.

49. Milan, S., & Trere, E. (2019). Big Data from the South(s): Beyond Data Universal. ** Television & New Media, 20(4), 319–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419837739 (verify)

Challenges "data universalism" by centering Southern perspectives on big data, arguing that dominant data practices serve Global North interests and proposing a Southern lens for critical data studies.

50. Wyche, S., & Simiyu, N. (2022). Designing AI for and with the Global South: A Pa. ** Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Article 438. (verify)

Presents a participatory design methodology for AI systems developed with East African communities, identifying design principles that prioritize local epistemologies, low-resource constraints, and community agency over technocentric optimization.

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

XD Whitehead, C. (2016). The underground railroad. Doubleday.

[Equity + Communication] Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning reimagining of the Underground Railroad as a literal rail system embeds Cora's escape in a sequence of regional propaganda regimes (the eugenics hospital in South Carolina, North Carolina's televised lynchings). The pillars synthesize through the figure of the printed broadside, the fugitive poster, and Cora's stolen literacy. The novel argues that communication infrastructures and racial inequity are co-constitutive across every era of American history. XD Jemisin, N. K. (2017). The stone sky. Orbit.

[Equity + Communication + AI] The trilogy's conclusion makes its cross-pillar argument explicit: the ancient civilization that built the obelisks also built the orogenes by genetically engineering an enslaved race. The pillars meet in the climactic political choice between repair and revenge. A foundational text for thinking about AI and racial inequity at planetary scale. XD North, C. (2016). The sudden appearance of hope. Orbit.

[Communication + AI + Equity] A woman whose existence is forgotten by everyone who meets her becomes a global thief and platform critic. North binds platform AI (the "Perfection" app that gamifies self-improvement), surveillance inequity, and the communication politics of being remembered. The pillars meet in the protagonist's relationship to social media's memory regime. XP Heti, S. (2018). Motherhood. Henry Holt.

Illuminates Communication: Heti's novel of a woman deciding whether to have a child, structured by coin-toss I Ching consultations, is a formal experiment in algorithmic decision-making. Placed beside scholarship on AI-assisted choice architecture, Motherhood illuminates what it costs to outsource consequential decisions to a randomizer. A surprising cross-pollination with decision-support AI.

Nonfiction

XD Citron, D. K. (2022). The fight for privacy: Protecting dignity, identity, and love in the digital age. W. W. Norton.

[Communication + Equity + AI] Citron extends her cross-pillar analysis to "intimate privacy"—deepfake porn, stalkerware, period-tracking apps. The pillars synthesize in the legal-political claim that intimate communication needs distinctive protections. XD Phillips, W. (2015). This is why we can't have nice things: Mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture. MIT Press.

[Communication + Equity] Phillips's ethnography of 4chan-era trolling binds platform communication norms to the broader U.S. culture-war inequities of race and gender. XD Bailey, M. (2021). Misogynoir transformed: Black women's digital resistance. NYU Press.

[Equity + Communication + AI] Bailey coined "misogynoir" and extends the analysis to Black women's algorithmic experience. The pillars synthesize in the platform as both site of harm and site of organized refusal. XP Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation. Farrar & Rinehart.

Illuminates Equity: Polanyi's account of market disembedding is a cross-pollination text for platform-capitalism scholarship.

PHD-904 — PHD 904 · Comparative IP: US, EU, and the Global South

PHD pillar · PhD Year 3 · Spring 2031

Course MOC. Reading list compiled from the 5-year curriculum.

Essential books

★ Bently, Sherman, Gangjee & Johnson — IP Law
★ Stamatoudi & Torremans — EU Copyright Law
★ Goldstein & Hugenholtz — International Copyright
★ Dreier & Hugenholtz — Concise European Copyright Law
★ Ruth Okediji — International IP Law

Supplementary books

☆ Christophe Geiger — Human Rights and IP
☆ Madhavi Sunder — From Goods to a Good Life
☆ Boatema Boateng — The Copyright Thing
☆ Daniel Gervais — TRIPS Agreement
☆ Peter Drahos — Global Governance of Knowledge

Papers (50)

1. P. Bernt Hugenholtz (2000). Why the Copyright Directive Is Unimportant, and Possibly Invalid European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

2. P. Bernt Hugenholtz (2017). Flexible Copyright: Can EU Copyright Law Accommodate Fair Use? ATRIP/WIPO Lectures on IP Law; reprinted in R. Okediji (ed.), Copyright Law in an Age of Limitations and Exceptions

3. Irini Stamatoudi; Paul Torremans (2014). The Scope of Protection of Copyright: Works and Subject Matter Chapter in I. Stamatoudi & P. Torremans (eds.), EU Copyright Law: A Commentary

4. Christophe Geiger (2006). Rethinking Copyright Limitations in the Information Society — The Three-Step Test in the Internet Environment Revue Internationale du Droit d'Auteur (RIDA)

5. Martin Senftleben (2010). Comparative Approaches to the Three-Step Test Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice

6. Martin Senftleben (2010). The International Three-Step Test: A Model Provision for EC Fair Use Legislation Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law (JIPITEC)

7. Eleonora Rosati (2022). YouTube/Cyando: A Balanced Approach to Online Platform Liability in Copyright Law? European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

8. Bernd Justin Jütte (2016). The Beginning of a (Happy?) Relationship: Copyright and Freedom of Expression in Europe European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

9. Christophe Geiger; Bernd Justin Jütte (2020). Pelham and Beyond: Copyright, Freedom of Artistic Creation, and Sampling in the EU International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC)

10. Alain Strowel; Nicolas Ide (2001). Liability with Regard to Hyperlinks Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts

11. Thomas Dreier (2010). Infopaq and the Europeanization of Copyright Law AIDA — Annali Italiani del Diritto d'Autore; also cited as chapter in Dreier-Hugenholtz Concise European Copyright editorial apparatus

12. Lucie Guibault; Bernd Justin Jütte (2019). Funke Medien, Spiegel Online and Pelham: Three Cases, One Answer? Fundamental Rights and Copyright in the CJEU Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice

13. João Pedro Quintais (2020). The New Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive: A Critical Commentary European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

14. Christophe Geiger; Giancarlo Frosio; Oleksandr Bulayenko (2018). The Exception for Text and Data Mining (TDM) in the Proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market — Legal Aspects European Parliament, Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs, PE 604.941

15. Lionel Bently; Brad Sherman (2022). Text and Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, and the Information Society Directive" (excerpt/adapted chapter) Chapter in L. Bently, B. Sherman, D. Gangjee & P. Johnson, Intellectual Property Law, 5th ed.

16. Maurizio Borghi; Stavroula Karapapa (2013). Contractual Restrictions on Lawful Use of Information: A New Barrier to Knowledge Building? European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

17. Andres Guadamuz (2023). The EU Artificial Intelligence Act and Intellectual Property Rights Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice

18. Martin Senftleben; Laurens Buijtelaar (2020). Robot Creativity: An Incentive-Based Neighbouring Right Approach European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

19. Paul Schwartz; Karl-Nikolaus Peifer (2017). Transatlantic Data Privacy Law Georgetown Law Journal

20. Jane C. Ginsburg (2003). The Concept of Authorship in Comparative Copyright Law DePaul Law Review

21. P. Bernt Hugenholtz (2006). Owning Science: Intellectual Property Rights and the Information Commons Chapter in N. Stehr & V. Meja (eds.), Society and Knowledge, 2nd ed.; also in JIPITEC working paper version

22. Pamela Samuelson (2016). Comparing U.S. and EU Approaches to Fair Use: Are They More Similar Than You Might Think? UC Davis Law Review

23. Robert Burrell; Allison Coleman (2005). Copyright Exceptions: The Digital Impact Cambridge Studies in Intellectual Property Rights (monograph chapter adapted for seminar)

24. Niva Elkin-Koren (2006). Making Technology Visible: Liability of Internet Service Providers for Peer-to-Peer Traffic NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy

25. Boateng, Boatema (2011). The Copyright Thing Doesn't Work Here: Adinkra and Kente Cultural Production in Ghana Book (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Chapter 1: "The Problem of Property" used as article-equivalent extract

26. Peter Drahos (2010). Global Governance of Knowledge: Patent Offices and Their Clients Developing World Bioethics; also chapter in P. Drahos, The Global Governance of Knowledge

27. Ruth L. Okediji (2004). Back to Bilateralism? Pendulum Swings in International Intellectual Property Protection University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal

28. Margaret Chon (2006). Intellectual Property and the Development Divide Cardozo Law Review

29. Madhavi Sunder (2006). IP3 Stanford Law Review

30. Wendy J. Gordon (1998). Intellectual Property as Price Discrimination: Implications for Contract Chicago-Kent Law Review

31. Jerome H. Reichman (1995). Universal Minimum Standards of Intellectual Property Protection under the TRIPS Component of the WTO Agreement The International Lawyer

32. Jerome H. Reichman; Catherine Hasenzahl (2003). Non-Voluntary Licensing of Patented Inventions: Historical Perspective, Legal Framework under TRIPS, and an Overview of the Practice in Can UNCTAD-ICTSD Issue Paper No. 5

33. Thomas Cottier (2005). The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Chapter in P. Macrory, A. Appleton & M. Plummer (eds.), The World Trade Organization: Legal, Economic and Political Analysis, Vol. I

34. Frederick M. Abbott (2002). The DOHA Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health: Lighting a Dark Corner at the WTO Journal of International Economic Law

35. Carlos M. Correa (2001). Integrating Public Health Concerns into Patent Legislation in Developing Countries South Centre Policy Discussion Paper

36. Robert Burrell; Michael D. A. Freeman (eds.) (2008). Introduction: Patent Law Reform and Public Interest" (from Patent Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research) Chapter in R. Burrell & D. Kelly (eds.), Patent Law and Theory

37. Laurence R. Helfer; Graeme W. Austin (2011). Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface" (Chapter 1: "Introduction — Mapping the Terrain") Chapter in L. Helfer & G. Austin, Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface

38. Laurence R. Helfer; Graeme W. Austin (2011). Author's Rights, Moral Rights, and the Right to Culture" (Chapter 5) Chapter in L. Helfer & G. Austin, Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface

39. Laurence R. Helfer (2007). Towards a Human Rights Framework for Intellectual Property UC Davis Law Review

40. Christophe Geiger (2009). Intellectual Property Shall Be Protected!? Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: A Mysterious Provision European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)

41. Peter K. Yu (2007). Reconceptualizing Intellectual Property Interests in a Human Rights Framework UC Davis Law Review

42. Ryan Abbott (2016). I Think, Therefore I Invent: Creative Computers and the Future of Patent Law Boston College Law Review

43. Matthew Sag (2019). The New Legal Landscape for Text Mining and Machine Learning Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA

44. Robin Mansell (2011). Governance of the Global Information Society: Implications for Intellectual Property Chapter in R. Mansell & M. Raboy (eds.), The Handbook on Global Media and Communication Policy

45. Yochai Benkler (1999). Free as the Air to Common Use: First Amendment Constraints on Enclosure of the Public Domain New York University Law Review

46. Angela Riley; Kristen A. Carpenter (2016). Owning Red: A Theory of Indian (Cultural) Appropriation Texas Law Review

47. Rosemary J. Coombe (1995). The Cultural Life of Things: Anthropological Approaches to Law and Economy in the Global Economy American University International Law Review

48. Peter Drahos; John Braithwaite (2002). Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?" (Chapter 1: "The Politics of Knowledge") Chapter in P. Drahos & J. Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?

49. Susan K. Sell (2011). TRIPS Was Never Enough: Vertical Forum Shifting, FTAS, ACTA, and TPP Journal of Intellectual Property Law

50. Paul Goldstein; P. Bernt Hugenholtz (2019). A Concept of International Copyright" (Chapter 2) Chapter in P. Goldstein & P. B. Hugenholtz, International Copyright: Principles, Law, and Practice, 4th ed.

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

XD Whitehead, C. (2019). The Nickel Boys. Doubleday.

[Equity + Communication] A Florida reform school's white-stratified violence is uncovered through correspondence, archival recovery, and a present-day protagonist's reckoning with a fellow student's stolen letters. Whitehead binds documentary recovery (communication and archival politics) to the racial inequity of carceral schooling. The pillars meet in the question of whose stories the public record protects, distorts, or finally surfaces. XD Jemisin, N. K. (2020). The city we became. Orbit.

[Equity + Communication] The avatars of New York's five boroughs fight a Lovecraftian gentrification force. Jemisin binds urban communication politics, the inequity of policing and displacement, and the soft AI of algorithmic neighborhood "improvement." The pillars meet in the question of who speaks for a city. A polemical cross-pillar fantasy of urban equity. XD Walton, J. (2014). My real children. Tor Books.

[Equity + Communication] A woman in a care home remembers two complete lives—two husbands, two political histories, two versions of the Cold War. Walton binds memory archival politics (whose history is real) to gender equity (queer family in one timeline, abusive marriage in the other) and to the communication infrastructures of two parallel media ecologies. The pillars meet at the chapter alternation itself. XP Bender, A. (2010). The particular sadness of lemon cake. Doubleday.

Illuminates Communication: Bender's novel of a girl who can taste the emotions of those who cooked her food is a study in unwanted communicational receptivity. Placed beside affective-computing scholarship, the book illuminates what happens when "reading" others becomes constant and involuntary. A cross-pollination for thinking about empathy AI.

Nonfiction

XD Cohen, J. E. (2012). Configuring the networked self: Law, code, and the play of everyday practice. Yale University Press.

[Communication + IP + Equity] Cohen reframes information law around the embodied, situated practices of networked users. The pillars synthesize in the legal theory of "semantic discontinuity"—gaps that allow play and selfhood. A foundational cross-pillar work in information law. XD Marwick, A. E. (2013). Status update: Celebrity, publicity, and branding in the social media age. Yale University Press.

[Communication + IP + Equity] Marwick documents the rise of the self-as-brand among Silicon Valley workers. The pillars synthesize in the figure of the "micro-celebrity." XD Mavhunga, C. C. (2017). The mobile workshop: The tsetse fly and African knowledge production. MIT Press.

Mavhunga's history of African knowledge production in colonial Zimbabwe argues that tsetse-fly control programs constituted a "mobile workshop" of indigenous and Western expertise — knowledge production happens through movement, encounter, and labor, not from sealed laboratories. Methodologically, the book combines environmental history with STS. For doctoral candidates, Mavhunga's work offers an essential template for thinking about non-Western technoscience, with implications for AI ethics' default Eurocentrism. XP Hartman, S. (2019). Wayward lives, beautiful experiments. W. W. Norton.

Illuminates Equity/Communication: Hartman's lyrical history of young Black women in early-20th-century cities is a cross-pollination text for any Black-feminist critical-data unit.

PHD-905 — PHD 905 · AI Auditing, Civil Rights, and Equity Audits

PHD pillar · PhD Year 3 · Spring 2031

Course MOC. Reading list compiled from the 5-year curriculum.

Essential books

★ Raji et al. — 'Closing the AI Accountability Gap'
★ Sandvig et al. — 'Auditing Algorithms'
★ Barocas & Selbst — 'Big Data's Disparate Impact'
★ Sandra Mayson — 'Bias In, Bias Out'
★ Pauline Kim — 'Data-Driven Discrimination at Work'

Supplementary books

☆ Andrew Selbst — 'Disparate Impact in Big Data Policing'
☆ Jason Bent — 'Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal?'
☆ Metaxa et al. — 'Auditing Algorithms'
☆ Brundage et al. — 'Toward Trustworthy AI Development'
☆ Wexler — 'Life, Liberty, and Trade Secrets'

Papers (50)

1. Christian Sandvig, Kevin Hamilton, Karrie Karahalios, Cedric Langbort. Auditing Algorithms: Research Methods for Detecting Discrimination on Internet Platforms

Defines audit methodology adapted from employment-discrimination research for platform algorithms; distinguishes sock-puppet audits, user-scraping audits, and crowdsourced audits; argues legal ambiguity under the CFAA constrains researcher access.

2. Danaë Metaxa, Joon Sung Park, Ronald E. Robertson, Karrie Karahalios, Christo Wi. Auditing Algorithms: Understanding Algorithmic Systems from the Outside

Surveys the full landscape of external audit methods — query testing, browser instrumentation, user panels — and proposes a unifying typology based on observability, threat model, and deployment context.

3. Inioluwa Deborah Raji, Joy Buolamwini. Actionable Auditing: Investigating the Impact of Publicly Naming Biased Performance Results of Commercial AI Products

Documents a longitudinal audit of three commercial gender-classification APIs after the Gender Shades disclosure; shows named public shaming measurably reduced error-rate gaps, demonstrating that audits are actionable levers — not only descriptive tools.

4. Margaret Mitchell, Simone Wu, Andrew Zaldivar, Parker Barnes, Lucy Vasserman, Be. Model Cards for Model Reporting Empirical methods for measuring discriminatory performance disparities in deployed systems.

Proposes a structured documentation schema — "model cards" — that discloses intended use, out-of-scope applications, evaluation metrics disaggregated by demographic subgroup, and known limitations; designed to be readable by non-technical stakeholders.

5. Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru. Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification

Audits three commercial computer-vision APIs on a benchmark balanced by skin tone and gender; finds error rates for darker-skinned women up to 34.7 percentage points higher than for lighter-skinned men; introduces intersectionality as an audit design principle. Required reading.

6. Inioluwa Deborah Raji, Genevieve Fried, Rya West, Liz O'Sullivan, Meredith Whitt. Saving Face: Investigating the Ethical Concerns of Facial Recognition Auditing

Examines methodological and ethical tensions in facial-recognition auditing — consent, benchmark contamination, researcher liability — and proposes an ethical audit protocol for biometric systems.

7. Ziad Obermeyer, Brian Powers, Christine Vogeli, Sendhil Mullainathan. Dissecting Racial Bias in an Algorithm Used to Manage the Health of Populations

Reverse-engineers a commercial healthcare risk-stratification algorithm; demonstrates that using healthcare cost as a proxy for healthcare need encodes structural racial inequality, causing Black patients to be systematically undertreated relative to equally sick white patients. Required reading.

8. Kenneth Holstein, Jennifer Wortman Vaughan, Hal Daumé III, Miro Dudik, Hanna Wal. Improving Fairness in Machine Learning Systems: What Do Industry Practitioners Need?

Interviews 35 ML practitioners across industry; identifies 10 recurring challenges including lack of ground-truth labels for protected attributes, conflicting stakeholder definitions of fairness, and absent organizational incentives; maps practitioner needs onto research gaps.

9. Harini Suresh, John V. Guttag. A Framework for Understanding Sources of Harm throughout the Machine Learning Life Cycle

Decomposes ML-introduced harm into seven distinct sources — historical bias, representation bias, measurement bias, aggregation bias, evaluation bias, deployment bias, feedback loops — providing a systematic diagnostic vocabulary for auditors.

10. Sam Corbett-Davies, Sharad Goel. The Measure and Mismeasure of Fairness: A Critical Review of Fair Machine Learning How existing anti-discrimination doctrine — Title VII, FHA, ECOA, § 1981 — maps onto algorithmic decision-making.

Reviews three dominant fairness criteria — anti-classification, classification parity, calibration — shows they are mutually incompatible under realistic conditions, and argues that individual fairness and calibration best align with legal non-discrimination norms.

11. Solon Barocas, Andrew D. Selbst. Big Data's Disparate Impact

Argues that data mining for prediction systematically re-produces historical discrimination through five mechanisms (skewed data, tainted examples, limited features, proxies, masking); maps each mechanism onto disparate-impact doctrine under Title VII; warns that existing law is structurally ill-equ

12. Andrew D. Selbst. Disparate Impact in Big Data Policing

Applies Title VII disparate-impact analysis to predictive policing algorithms; shows feedback loops in crime data generate self-fulfilling discriminatory predictions that are legally invisible under current doctrine; proposes structural remedies at the data-collection and audit levels.

13. Sandra G. Mayson. Bias In, Bias Out

Challenges the premise that biased training data is the primary problem; argues that even a perfectly accurate predictive algorithm will encode unjust historical disparities, and that the normative question is whether prediction itself is a legitimate basis for criminal-justice decision-making.

14. Pauline T. Kim. Data-Driven Discrimination at Work

Examines how employers use algorithmic tools for hiring, performance management, and termination; argues that Title VII's existing categories — disparate treatment and disparate impact — fail to address opaque, multi-factor algorithmic scoring, and proposes a transparency mandate.

15. Nicholas Diakopoulos. Algorithmic Accountability

Identifies four dimensions of algorithmic accountability — prioritization, classification, association, filtering — and argues that journalism and public oversight are needed to expose discriminatory algorithmic systems; early call for external audit rights.

16. W. Gregory Vetter, Marc L. Miller. Regulating Artificial Intelligence Systems: Risks, Challenges, Competencies, and Strategies Doctrine-specific analysis of federal civil-rights statutes as applied to algorithmic systems in employment, housing, credit, and disability

Surveys civil-rights, consumer-protection, and tort frameworks potentially applicable to AI systems; identifies competency gaps in regulatory agencies and proposes a layered federal–state regulatory model with mandatory audit disclosure.

17. Julia Stoyanovich, Bill Howe. Is Algorithmic Affirmative Action Legal?

Examines whether corrective algorithmic interventions — re-ranking, constraint optimization — are permissible under Title VII's anti-preferential-treatment provision and equal-protection doctrine; argues narrow tailoring analysis applies.

18. Andrew D. Selbst. Automated Housing Discrimination: Race, Algorithms, and the Fair Housing Act

Applies disparate-impact analysis under Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project to algorithmic advertising and tenant-screening tools; maps five audit-relevant discrimination pathways onto FHA doctrine; argues third-party algorithmic vendors share liability.

19. Ifeoma Ajunwa. Robot Hiring: Reforming EEOC Guidance for AI in Hiring

Analyzes EEOC Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures as applied to AI-driven résumé screening, video interview scoring, and personality testing; argues current EEOC guidance is inadequate and proposes an AI-specific adverse-impact testing protocol.

20. Mary Crossley. The Disability Dimension of Algorithmic Fairness

Analyzes how ADA and Section 504 apply to AI systems in healthcare, benefits administration, and employment; identifies how "accuracy" as a fairness metric obscures disparate outcomes for people with disabilities; calls for disaggregated disability auditing.

21. Aaron Rieke, David Robinson, Harlan Yu. Credit Scoring, Discrimination, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act

Empirically maps credit-scoring model inputs to ECOA-protected characteristics; identifies structural proxies (zip code, purchase history) that disparately affect protected classes; calls for CFPB audit-access regulations.

22. Jane Bambauer, Toni Massaro. Algorithmic Lending Discrimination and the ECOA Technical and legal dimensions of algorithmic explanation — when is explanation required, what counts as adequate, and for whom.

Argues that ECOA's disparate-impact liability framework, as applied to ML credit models, creates perverse incentives to hide — rather than correct — discriminatory proxies; proposes a safe-harbor structure conditioned on mandated third-party audits.

23. Andrew D. Selbst, Solon Barocas. The Intuitive Appeal of Explainable Machines

Critiques the assumption that explainability solves algorithmic discrimination; argues that (1) explanations are selected and therefore can mislead, and (2) disparate-impact doctrine does not require explanation — it requires justification; distinguishes transparency from accountability. *Required r

24. Margot E. Kaminski. The Right to Explanation, Explained

Conducts a close doctrinal reading of GDPR Articles 13–15 and 22; distinguishes ex ante explanation (notification) from ex post explanation (contestation); argues US law lacks analogous rights and proposes a federal right-to-explanation framework.

25. Finale Doshi-Velez, Been Kim. Towards a Rigorous Science of Interpretable Machine Learning

Proposes a taxonomy of interpretability evaluation — application-grounded (with domain experts), human-grounded (with lay users), and functionally-grounded (proxy metrics) — and argues for matched evaluation methods to avoid measuring the wrong thing.

26. Cynthia Rudin. Stop Explaining Black Box Machine Learning Models for High Stakes Decisions and Use Interpretable Models Instead

Challenges the post-hoc explainability paradigm; argues that for high-stakes decisions (criminal sentencing, medical diagnosis, lending) an inherently interpretable model is always available and preferable to approximating an opaque one with a surrogate.

27. Marco Tulio Ribeiro, Sameer Singh, Carlos Guestrin. Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier

Introduces LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations), a method for producing locally faithful explanations of any black-box classifier; demonstrates utility on text and image classifiers.

28. Tim Miller. Explanation in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Social Sciences Frameworks, institutional designs, and empirical studies of AIA processes in government and industry.

Reviews social-science literature on human explanation to argue that XAI research neglects the contrastive, selective, and social dimensions of explanation; argues technical XAI must be re-grounded in human-centered evaluation.

29. Dillon Reisman, Jason Schultz, Kate Crawford, Meredith Whittaker. Algorithmic Impact Assessments: A Practical Framework for Public Agency Accountability

Proposes a structured AIA process modeled on environmental and human-rights impact assessments; specifies 5 stages — scoping, analysis, mitigation, disclosure, public participation — and argues federal procurement rules should mandate AIA for government AI acquisitions.

30. Andrew D. Selbst. An Institutional View of Algorithmic Impact Assessments

Critically evaluates AIAs as a governance instrument; argues they are likely to be captured by deploying organizations, lack independent verification, and should be paired with mandatory third-party audits and civil-society participation rights.

31. Sarah Garg, Londa Schiebinger. Methodology Matters: Measuring Gender and Racial Bias in Word Embedding Association Tests

Examines validity of WEAT bias metrics used in NLP audits; shows that metric choice dramatically affects conclusions about gender and racial bias in word embeddings; argues for reporting multiple metrics with confidence intervals.

32. Lilian Edwards, Michael Veale. Algorithmic Impact Assessments Under the GDPR: Producing Multi-Layered Explanations

Analyzes GDPR Article 35 data-protection impact assessment requirements as applied to automated decision-making; proposes a layered explanation architecture for compliance that also serves audit verification.

33. Inioluwa Deborah Raji, Andrew Smart, Rebecca N. White, Margaret Mitchell, Timnit. Closing the AI Accountability Gap: Defining an End-to-End Framework for Internal Algorithmic Auditing

Proposes a five-stage internal audit framework (SMACTR — Scoping, Mapping, Artifact collection, Testing, Reflection) and demonstrates it at Google; argues internal audits must be institutionally independent to avoid capture.

34. Aaron Rieke, Harlan Yu, David Robinson. Auditing Algorithms for Discrimination Comparing upstream (development-time) and downstream (operational) audit strategies, governance structures, and third-party audit models.

Proposes that government agencies use administrative audit authority (under Title VII, FHA, ECOA) to compel algorithmic testing; provides a legal roadmap for EEOC, HUD, and CFPB to mandate bias audits through existing statutory powers.

35. Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin, Jack Clark, Helen Toner, Peter Eckersley, Ben Garfi. Toward Trustworthy AI Development: Mechanisms for Supporting Verifiable Claims

Surveys technical and institutional mechanisms — model evaluation, red-teaming, bug bounties, third-party audits, formal verification — for making AI safety claims verifiable; argues no single mechanism suffices and calls for a certification ecosystem.

36. Gianluca Falco, Cathy Simmers, Jatin Nathwani, Gunes Ercal, Oluwaseun Sode. Governing AI Safety through Independent Audits

Draws on nuclear, aviation, and financial-audit governance models to design a framework for independent AI auditors; proposes credentialing, conflict-of-interest rules, and minimum audit standards; addresses the revolving-door problem.

37. Michael Gaddis. Audit Studies: Behind the Scenes with Theory, Method, and Nuance

Reviews the long tradition of correspondence and in-person audit studies in housing and employment discrimination research; examines validity threats (outcome coding, tester variability, ecological validity) and proposes quality standards directly applicable to digital audit design.

38. Ben Green. Constructing "Best Practices" in Machine Learning Auditing: Challenges and Pathways

Analyzes how "best practice" discourse in algorithmic auditing constructs legitimacy without necessarily improving outcomes; argues that audit professionalization can become a shield against stronger legal accountability; calls for civil-society participation in setting audit standards.

39. Deep Ganguli, Liane Lovitt, Jackson Kernion, Amanda Askell, Yuntao Bai, Saurav K. Red-Teaming Language Models to Reduce Harms: Methods, Scaling Behaviors, and Lessons Learned

Documents Anthropic's large-scale red-teaming methodology for LLMs; finds that larger models are harder to red-team and that red-teaming alone is insufficient; calls for complementary external audit mechanisms.

40. Lori Isenstadt, Daniel E. Ho. The Outsider's Dilemma: Practical and Legal Barriers to Third-Party AI Auditing Connections between audit methodology and adjacent fields: intellectual property, journalism, design justice, and AI governance policy.

Surveys legal barriers — trade-secret privilege, CFAA, contractual NDAs — that third-party auditors face when attempting to access AI systems; compares financial-audit and environmental-audit models; proposes a federal compelled-disclosure statute.

41. Rebecca Wexler. The Right to Audit AI

Argues that trade-secret law is systematically used to block defense access to algorithmic evidence in criminal proceedings; proposes a compelled-disclosure doctrine under due-process and confrontation clause grounds; extends to civil audit access.

42. Amanda Levendowski. How Copyright Law Can Fix Artificial Intelligence's Implicit Bias Problem

Argues that copyright's fair-use doctrine and work-for-hire rules enable training-data practices that embed bias; proposes copyright reform — broader fair use for bias testing, mandatory licensing with bias audits — as a mechanism for upstream bias mitigation.

43. Angèle Christin. Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms

Ethnography of US and French digital newsrooms shows how traffic metrics are interpreted, resisted, and instrumentalized by journalists; demonstrates that algorithmic accountability requires understanding the organizational context of metric use.

44. Sasha Costanza-Chock. Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need

Argues that design processes systematically reproduce matrix-of-domination inequalities unless communities most affected by a technology lead the design; proposes Design Justice principles as an upstream audit and co-design methodology.

45. Ben Green, Yiling Chen. The Misuse of AUC: Validation in High-Stakes Prediction

Shows that AUC — the dominant summary metric in risk-assessment validation — systematically obscures subgroup disparities; demonstrates that criminal risk instruments with identical AUC scores can have radically different disparate-impact profiles across racial groups.

46. Jamila Jefferson-Jones. Artificial Intelligence and Civil Rights: Toward a Framework for Equity Audits

Proposes "equity audits" as a distinct category from bias audits: while bias audits test statistical parity, equity audits assess whether a system advances or retards historically marginalized groups' substantive access to opportunity; links to FHA affirmative obligation.

47. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0)

Provides a voluntary framework organized around four core functions — Govern, Map, Measure, Manage — for organizations developing or deploying AI; integrates bias, safety, and privacy risks; designed to be sector-agnostic and compatible with ISO 42001.

48. Philipp Hacker, Andreas Engel, Marco Mauer. The EU AI Act and Conformity Assessment: A Blueprint for Democratic AI Governance

Analyzes EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) risk-tiered conformity assessment requirements; compares Notified Body third-party audit model to US voluntary approaches; argues that mandatory fundamental-rights impact assessments for high-risk AI provide a stronger civil-rights floor than US law.

49. Meredith Whittaker, Kate Crawford, Roel Dobbe, Genevieve Fried, Elizabeth Kaziun. Unfairness by Algorithm: Distilling the Harms of Automated Decision-Making

Catalogs harm modalities produced by automated decision-making across five domains — criminal justice, education, employment, healthcare, public benefits — and proposes a cross-domain equity-audit standard; argues existing civil-rights enforcement agencies must develop technical competency.

50. Ruha Benjamin. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code All 50 entries marked (verify). Confirm volume numbers, page ranges, and DOIs against library databases (ACM DL, JSTOR, SSRN, Google Schol

Introduces the "New Jim Code" concept: the embedding of racial discrimination in ostensibly neutral technical systems; argues that algorithmic auditing, if confined to bias metrics, risks legitimizing discriminatory systems rather than dismantling them; calls for abolitionist and community-centered

Braided extracurricular reading

Fiction

XD Adjei-Brenyah, N. K. (2018). Friday Black. Mariner Books.

[Equity + Communication + AI] In the title story, retail workers fight zombified Black Friday shoppers; in "The Finkelstein 5," a daily walk is reimagined as a televised dare. Adjei-Brenyah braids racialized labor, virality, and a coming algorithmic gaze. The pillars synthesize through brand-and-spectacle: how consumerism's communication systems extract from Black bodies in conditions of platformed visibility. A debut collection that reads as a single argument about cross-pillar terror. XD Coates, T.-N. (2019). The water dancer. One World.

[Equity + Communication] Hiram Walker, born to an enslaved woman and her plantation master, discovers he can "conduct" people via memory across geography. Coates binds Black archival recovery to the communicative magic of memory itself, and to the inequity of forgetting as state policy. The pillars meet in the conducting itself: communication as freedom infrastructure. XD Ozeki, R. (2013). A tale for the time being. Viking.

[Communication + Equity + AI] A Canadian novelist on a Pacific island finds a Tokyo schoolgirl's diary washed up after the 2011 tsunami. Ozeki binds transpacific communication infrastructure (the diary, the Hello Kitty lunchbox, the email-back-and-forth) to the inequity politics of the bullied schoolgirl and her kamikaze great-uncle. The pillars meet in the quantum question of who is reading whom. XP Murata, S. (2016). Convenience store woman (G. Tapley Takemori, Trans.). Granta. (Original work published 2016)

Illuminates AI/Equity: Murata's slim novel of a woman who works at a Tokyo konbini and finds personal meaning in its scripted protocols is a study in human-as-API. Placed beside ghost-work scholarship, the book illuminates how scripted retail labor produces a different theory of selfhood. A cross-pollination for thinking about LLM-as-assistant from inside the worker's perspective.

Nonfiction

XD Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. Penguin Press.

[IP + Communication + Equity] Lessig's argument for a "hybrid economy" of remix and commerce binds copyright reform to vernacular communication and to amateur production economics. The pillars synthesize in the "Read-Write" culture argument. A canonical text for cross-pillar IP-communication scholarship. XD Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke University Press.

[Equity + Communication] Banet-Weiser argues that popular feminism and popular misogyny are dialectically linked online. The pillars synthesize in the meme economy. XD Cooper, B. (2018). Eloquent rage: A Black feminist discovers her superpower. St. Martin's Press.

[Equity + Communication] Cooper's essays bind Black feminist anger to the public communication economy of academic and popular writing. The pillars synthesize in the public-intellectual register. XP Sharpe, C. (2016). In the wake: On Blackness and being. Duke University Press.

Illuminates Equity: Sharpe's meditation on the afterlives of slavery is a cross-pollination text for any Black-studies AI-ethics unit.