QUARANTINE VLOGS: DIGITAL AFFECTIVE LABOR AND SELF-GOVERNANCE DURING COVID-19

This research explores how did influencers incorporate the Covid-19 pandemic into their regular content production on YouTube by specifically examining the recent genre of "quarantine vlog," which emerged in concurrence with global lockdowns. I adopt a grounded theory approach to analyze the YouTube transcriptions of purposefully selected 9 quarantine vlogs filmed by women influencers during the early months of the pandemic, along with 250 user comments. My analysis shows that quarantine vlogs are significantly different than ordinary vlogs. I draw on existing research on influencer cultures to explain this dissimilarity as a tension between influencers' struggle to form an intimacy with the viewers - which can have a soothing effect in a moment of a crisis - and the use of vlogs as a neoliberal device in order to preserve their aspirational image. I demonstrate that quarantine vlogs reveal that influencers are no longer able to perform an aspirational ideal in their videos without first engaging with the mental stress, anxiety, confusion, and loneliness brought by COVID-19 or apologizing for their relative privilege and demonstrating sympathy towards their followers who are in hardship. At the same time, to preserve their aspirational persona, they reframe the pandemic moment as an opportunity for productivity and self-growth. As a result, influencers carry out substantial affective labor and engage in a delicate self-governance to preserve their relevance and online visibility during a global moment of crisis.

Dimensional Analysis and Optimization of IsoTruss Structures with Outer Longitudinal Members in Uniaxial Compression

This study analyzes the buckling behavior of 8-node IsoTruss® structures with outer longitudinal members. IsoTruss structures are light-weight composite lattice columns with diverse structural applications, including the potential to replace rebar cages in reinforced concrete. In the current work, finite element analyses are used to predict the critical buckling loads of structures with various dimensions. A dimensional analysis is performed by: deriving non-dimensional Π variables using Buckingham’s Π Theorem; plotting the Π variables with respect to critical buckling loads to characterize trends between design parameters and buckling capacity; evaluating the performance of the outer longitudinal configuration with respect to the traditional, internal longitudinal configuration possessing the same bay length, outer diameter, longitudinal radius, helical radius, and mass. The dimensional analysis demonstrates that the buckling capacity of the inner configuration exceeds that of the equivalent outer longitudinal structure for the dimensions that are fixed and tested herein. A gradient-based optimization analysis is performed to minimize the mass of both configurations subject to equivalent load criteria. The optimized outer configuration has about 10.5% less mass than the inner configuration by reducing the outer diameter whilst maintaining the same global moment of inertia.

Global movement for Black lives: A conversation between Awino Okech and Shereen Essof

This conversation reflects on the importance of transnational Black solidarity in a global moment where the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed structural inequalities that sustain Black death and the global movement for Black lives has focussed attention on anti-Blackness. We reflect on the legacies of past and contemporary Black, Indigenous, People of Colour activism and the role that this has played in strengthening transnational efforts to deal with colonialism, imperialism and patriarchy. In highlighting how anti-Blackness is sustained across different institutions - from the academy to social movements, we centre Black feminist movements’ role in building radical visions of equitable and transformative worlds through a focus on the nexus between patriarchy, capitalism and white supremacy. Black feminist visions we argue are geared at disrupting and transforming current power structures to advance justice and create liberatory futures. A central part of these liberatory futures lies in building collective power that is rooted in the political values of solidarity, hope and joy.

Words, Not Bombs

The introduction to this special issue of boundary 2 examines W. G. Sebald’s rapid and sudden transformation from controversial and curmudgeonly Germanist to literary superstar as a case study in the “global valences of the critical.” The massive success of Sebald’s strange and variegated oeuvre among critics highlights a pervasive and troubling provincialism afflicting this supposedly global moment in world cultural history. Using Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, the author links the emergence of “distant” modes of reading to drone warfare and concludes by calling for greater emphasis on literary translation.

Crossed Wires in the Motor City: A Genealogy and Analysis of the 1967 Riots and the 1968 Strike Wave in Detroit

In the years 1967 and 1968 the city of Detroit was the site of two waves of rebellion. The riot of 1967 was one of the largest and most costly urban rebellions in U.S. history. And in the ashes of the ‘67 insurrection a wave of strikes began shutting down the sprawling factories of the auto industry. These strikes were organized by militant Black workers who later founded the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, an organization that characterized itself as the “ideological inheritor” of the riot. This article situates the League within the global moment of 1968, discusses the relationship of work stoppages to circulation struggles, and examines how the participants’ experience in riots, both on the streets of Detroit and in the prisons around the state, informed the praxis and politics of the League.