Overview – Data from the Margins

All reading is required. When possible, readings are linked from this site. (You might need to use the UCLA VPN.) If no link is present, you can find the reading on BruinLearn, under the module for the appropriate week.

1	A	Tuesday, March 31, 2026	Introduction	No required reading
1	B	Thursday, April 2, 2025	Why Do We Count?	Nguyen, C. T. (2024, March 4). The Limits of Data. Issues in Science and Technology. Chang, L. W., Kirgios, E. L., Mullainathan, S., & Milkman, K. L. (2024). Does counting change what counts? Quantification fixation biases decision-making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(46). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2400215121
2	A	Tuesday, April 7, 2026	Imagination and Disavowal	“Exposition: Father, Can’t You See I’m Burning?,” in Disavowal, electronic edition, by Alenka Zupančič, Theory Redux (Polity Press, 2024). Ruha Benjamin, Imagination: A Manifesto (W.W. Norton & Company, 2024). Story-Based Strategy 101, Center for Story-Based Strategy.
2	B	Thursday, April 9, 2026	The Entangled Origins of Race and Data	Lauren Klein, “Every Datapoint a Person,” in Data by Design (MIT, 2024). Aubrey Clayton, “How Eugenics Shaped Statistics,” Nautilus, October 27, 2020.
3	A	Tuesday, April 14, 2026	What is Machine Learning?	Madhumita Murgia, “Generative AI Exists Because of the Transformer,” Financial Times, September 12, 2023. Burkhardt, Sarah, and Bernhard Rieder. “Foundation Models Are Platform Models: Prompting and the Political Economy of AI.” Big Data & Society 11, no. 2 (2024).
3	B	Thursday, April 16, 2026	The Politics of ML	Louise Amoore, “Machine Learning Political Orders,” Review of International Studies 49, no. 1 (2023): 20–36. Yeshimabeit Milner and Amy Traub, Data Capitalism and Algorithmic Racism (Demos, 2021).
4	A	Tuesday, April 21, 2026	NO CLASS	NO CLASS
4	B	Thursday, April 23, 2026	NO CLASS	NO CLASS
5	A	Tuesday, April 28, 2026	Platform Capitalism	“Platform Capitalism,” in Platform Capitalism, electronic edition, by Nick Srnicek, Theory Redux (Polity, 2017). Tosh, Kaitlin, and Michelle Inez Simon. “The X Effect: How the World’s Richest Man Is Boosting the British Right.” Sky News, Nov. 26, 2025. Platform Cooperative Consortium
5	B	Thursday, April 30, 2026	Data Brokers	Rahul Kanwal and Kevin Walby, Tracking the Surveillance and Information Practices of Data Brokers: A Report (University of Winnipeg, 2024) Jude Joffe-Block, “Your Data Is Everywhere. The Government Is Buying It without a Warrant,” Technology, NPR, March 25, 2026. Thompson, Stuart A., and Charlie Warzel. “Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy.” Opinion. The New York Times, December 19, 2019.
6	A	Tuesday, May 5, 2026	Fascism	Christopher Mathias, To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right (Atria Books, 2026).
6	B	Thursday, May 7, 2026	Immigration (with Graeme Blair, Deportation Data Project)	Melissa Villa-Nicholas, “Latinx Data Bodies,” in Data Borders: How Silicon Valley Is Building an Industry around Immigrants (University of California Press, 2023). Jamiles Lartey, “How AI Surveillance Tech Is Creeping From the Southern Border Into the Rest of the Country,” The Marshall Project, February 7, 2026. Deportation Data Project
7	A	Tuesday, May 12, 2026	Edtech	Brian Merchant, “‘If AI Is Writing the Work and AI Is Reading the Work, Do We Even Need to Be There at All?’ Education Workers Reveal a Growing Crisis on Campus and off,” November 28, 2025. Roxana Marachi and Lawrence Quill, “The Case of Canvas: Longitudinal Datafication through Learning Management Systems,” Teaching in Higher Education 25, no. 4 (2020): 418–34. Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions (American Association of University Professors, 2025).
7	B	Thursday, May 14, 2026	Data Journalism (with Jill Castellano, Marshall Project)	Anne Ryman et al., “The Wall: An in-Depth Examination of Donald Trump’s Border Wall,” USA Today, September 29, 2017. (Be sure to pay attention to “About this Report.”) Shoshana Walter and Jill Castellano, “Tens of Thousands of Mothers Were Flagged to Police Over Flawed Drug Tests at Childbirth,” The Marshall Project, February 10, 2026 and Jill Castellano and Shoshana Walter, “How We Tracked Reports to Police About Drug Use During Pregnancy,” Methodology, The Marshall Project, February 10, 2026. Jill Castellano, “How Trump’s Policies Hide Information on the Criminal Justice System,” The Marshall Project, May 3, 2025.
8	A	Tuesday, May 19, 2026	Data Workers	Michael Geoffrey Asia, The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy (Data Workers Inquiry, 2025). Jason Koebler,v“‘AI Is African Intelligence’: The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back,” 404 Media, March 12, 2026.
8	B	Thursday, May 21, 2026	AI and the Future of Work	TechEquity, Take the Mic: How Worker Voice Shapes Workplace Technology, July 29, 2025. Josh Dzieza, “The Laid-off Lawyers and PhDs Training AI to Steal Their Careers,” March 10, 2026.
9	A	Tuesday, May 26, 2026	Policing	Bilel Benbouzid, “To Predict and to Manage. Predictive Policing in the United States,” Big Data & Society 6, no. 1 (2019). Stop LAPD Spying. (n.d.). LAPD Architecture of Surveillance. Retrieved March 27, 2025.
9	B	Thursday, May 28, 2026	Data and Indigeneity (with Jeff Doctor, Animikii)	#DataBack: Asserting & Supporting Indigenous Data Sovereignty (Animikii Indigenous Technology, 2023). #DataBack Vol 2: Truth Before “Indigenous AI”: Understanding and Resisting Generative AI (Animikii Indigenous Technology, 2024).
10	A	Tuesday, June 2, 2026	AI and War	Kevin Baker, “AI Got the Blame for the Iran School Bombing. The Truth Is Far More Worrying,” News, The Guardian, March 26, 2026. Amos Toh and Emile Ayoub, The Business of Military AI (Brennan Center for Justice, 2025).
10	B	Thursday, June 4, 2026	Wrap-up