“The Full Stack” | Digital IDEAS Summer Institute 2027
Call for Applications
The Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan invites applicants for our 7th Annual Digital IDEAS Summer Institute, to be held June 20 - 25, 2027, at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
The Digital IDEAS summer program supports scholars and thinkers at the intersection of critical digital studies, social justice, and public intellectualism. The institute’s week-long community-building workshop, led by faculty director Germaine Halegoua, hosts graduate students, postdocs, independent scholars, aca-adjacent artists and activists, and those in early career transition.
This year we invite participants to join us in thinking about “the full stack.”
While “the full stack” may refer to a collection of interdependent layers of software and technologies required to run or build a computational system, we’re considering “the full stack” beyond its technical meaning.
Scholar and policy advisor, Alondra Nelson, has encouraged researchers to examine the “full AI stack,” which includes all processes, sites, people, and environments that impact and are impacted by AI development, adoption, and use. This includes investigating processes of mineral extraction used to develop hardware to run AI systems, as well as how these systems are used, and everything before, beyond, and in between. In the midst of a global AI frenzy, it is imperative to consider the interdependent systems, institutions, labor, geographies, and power relations that support AI from conceptualization to use and resistance; from imaginary to material artifact to ruin; from past to present and future.
This year’s Digital IDEAS Summer Institute addresses the “full stack” by recognizing and connecting multiple axes and layers of AI as social, temporal, geopolitical, and environmental that can be interrogated through a variety of methods and entry points. We are thrilled to host Dr. Laura Forlano and Dr. Anne Pasek as our featured faculty moderators, in addition to U-M faculty from a range of schools and departments.
This theme of “the full stack” is not solely about AI, but about recognizing and interrogating other interdependent layers where digital technologies, industries, and practices take hold. For example, paying attention to elemental and environmental stacks such as orbital, terrestrial, and undersea spaces or layers of air, dust, dirt, hydrogen, and carbon where digital technologies are embedded or used to extract or examine these spaces and elements. Interrogating the full stack can refer to investigating cycles of time, (re)production, and decommissioning of digital media. The full stack may also refer to the intersection of methods, approaches, critical and creative insights, and working across realms including industry, academia, and community engagement. Moving beyond objects or topics of research, our interpretation of the full stack includes the pursuit of a variety of expressions and presentations of knowledge and research from more traditional journal articles to zines, art and design projects, or interactive experiences.
Some examples may include:
Investigating social and cultural dimensions of digital media as well as political, technical, and economic
Understanding and acknowledging the plurality of AI and digital media use and experiences
Considering the human, flora, or fauna and AI or other computational systems and ecosystems
Considering the histories, present, and/or futures of particular digital technologies and society
Considering the geopolitics or cultural geographies of digital media
Examining spaces and sites beyond the terrestrial to include outer space, undersea, and deep earth where digital technologies, cultures, and concerns are located
Focusing on processes and impacts of AI and digital media beyond media use – including mineral extraction, design, marketing, ideologies, folklore, rumors & conspiracy theories, bias, error, labor, permitting and siting, infrastructures, environment, or regulation
Centering digital practices, processes, labor, and infrastructure that is hidden, disguised, or practically invisible
Focusing on the pre-conditions, afterlives, lifecycles, ruins of AI and digital technologies or platforms
Thinking speculatively, otherwise, or beyond our digital present
Interrogating and expanding methods for digital studies research and research presentation
Expressing knowledge and research about digital media in a variety of forms – from more traditional journal articles to zines, art and design projects, or interactive experiences
This call for applicants initiates our effort to bring together participants with a wide range of research topics and practices. We invite applications that address any of the topics mentioned above or any additional interpretation of the theme of “the full stack.” We support a range of analytical frameworks, methodologies, and objects of study that can reasonably be considered digital studies in scope.
| Cost of Attendance |
$750 USD - Registration Fee $1,300 USD - Registration Fee including U-M Dorm Housing for the duration of the week
For all Digital Studies Institute (DSI) Graduate Certificate Students the registration fee is reduced to $250. A limited amount of need-based financial assistance is available to applicants in the form of fee waivers. As funding is limited, fee waivers are not guaranteed and will be awarded based on demonstrated financial need. Applicants interested in being considered for a fee waiver should complete the “Financial Assistance” section of the online application. |
| How to Apply |
Applications can be submitted online using this application form. If this form presents any difficulty, you are welcome to complete the application via this Word Document and email all application materials to the Digital IDEAS Coordinator, Sarah Torsch, at dsi-studentservices@umich.edu. The DIGITAL IDEAS Application Deadline is Sunday, January 17, 2027 |
