Conclusion of the 2024 working group

jeremydouglass

Dear working group participants,

Last week marked the end of our programming for the 2024 Critical Code Studies Working Group. Thank you all for a productive and enlightening 8th biennial!

Our forum will remain open to replies for one extra week. Many need just a bit more time to contribute one last response. If you wish to leave any last comments, reactions, brainstorms or critiques on any working group discussion (Weeks 1-4), please do so.

If you wish to contribute CCS teaching materials or experiences please comment in Craig Dietrich's Teaching CCS main thread or create your own Week 4 thread with syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, exercises, or workshops.

By this Sunday Mar 3rd please contribute any new code critiques if you still wish to do so. This will allow time for respondents.

After next Sat Mar 9th all threads will close for new comments and be archived for editing and republication. Past working groups have appeared in Electronic Book Review.

Also, keep in mind that participants are invited to use book discount from The MIT Press discount code for books related to Critical Code Studies and to contribute items to the CCS Zotero Bibliography.

Our topic schedule this year has included:

• Feb 5 Week 1: Queer(ing) Code
• Feb 12 Week 2: AI and CCS
• Feb 19 Week 3: DHQ Special Issues
• Feb 26 Week 4: Teaching Code Studies

Special thanks to hosts Edmond Y. Chang & Jarah Moesch for leading "Queer(ing) Code" and to Marylyn Tan for contributing her featured poem, to Craig Dietrich for leading "Teaching Critical Code Studies", and to our co-hosts and guest authors from the Critical Code Studies special issues of Digital Humanities Quarterly: David Berry, Jason Boyd, Kevin Brock, Matthew Burton, Evan Buswell, John Cayley, Lai-Tze Fan, Minh Hua, Zach Mann, Rita Raley, Daniel Temkin, Annette Vee, Zach Whalen, and Joris Van Zundert.

Thanks also to the organizers: Lyr Colin, Andrea Kim, Elea Zhong, Zachary Mann, Jeremy Douglass, and Mark C. Marino, to our sponsors, the Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab at the University of Southern California and the Digital Arts & Humanities Commons at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and to Digital Humanities Quarterly and The MIT Press for supporting scholarship in Critical Code Studies.

Finally, our thanks to YOU for being a participant in this working group! We look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come before reconvening for CCSWG 2026. Please contact us to discuss ideas for the next biennale! To keep up with calls and events in the meantime watch HaCCS Lab (https://haccslab.com) and Critical Code Studies (https://criticalcodestudies.com) or follow on social media.

with best regards,
Jeremy, Mark, Zach, Andrea, Lyr, and Elea

Waliya

How does an African scholar staying in the Subsaharan Africa practice CCS without the knowledge of programming? I think, a teacher of CCS must be a code reader as well as a programmer for him to be a code critique!