This collection offers the first up-to-date, book-length, academic study of Amazon. It is an indispensable tool for any researcher in the humanities and social sciences in the future looking to study not only Amazon, but also other capitalist platform systems, as well as the huge array of social, political, economic and cultural issues that they implicate. Amazon is too complex and multi-faceted a platform for any individual researcher to cover. Structuring the book as an edited collection allows the editors to incorporate a broad range of expertise, critical insight, and methodological depth adequate to the task of being the first comprehensive book to critically analyze Amazon as a technology platform.
Paul Smith is Professor of Cultural Studies and Global Affairs at George Mason University. Most of his working life has been spent in the US, including posts at Miami University OH, and Carnegie Mellon before his appointment at George Mason University in 1996. Between 1999 and 2002 he was chaired Professor and department head of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex. At George Mason he has been director of the Center for the Study of the Americas and currently teaches mostly in the Cultural Studies PhD program, but also for Global Affairs. He was elected President of the national Cultural Studies Association (2016-18). He is the author of Pound Revised, Discerning the Subject, Clint Eastwood: A Cultural Production, Millennial Dreams: Culture and Capital in the North, and Primitive America: The Ideology of Capitalist Democracy. He has edited Men in Feminism (with Alice Jardine), Madonnarama (with Lisa Frank), and Boys, and has published a book of translations from Jean Louis Schefer, The Enigmatic Body. His essays and articles have appeared in scores of journals and collections in the US and overseas. His most recent edited volume is The Renewal of Cultural Studies and he is currently completing a book on Covid vaccines. Alexander Monea is an Assistant Professor in the English Department and Cultural Studies Program at George Mason University. He researches the history and cultural impacts of computers and digital media. He is the author of The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight and co-author of The Prisonhouse of the Circuit: Politics of Control from Analog to Digital. He is also an editor for the journal Data & Policy focusing on the area of Ethics, Equity, and Trust. Maillim Santiago is a media and culture scholar pursuing a Cultural Studies doctoral track at George Mason University. She has contributed work to MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture and Final Girls Film Festival. Her work has screened across the country, including the Brooklyn Women's Film Festival, Tampa Bay Comic Con, Florida's Undergraduate Research Conference, Orlando Film Festival, Final Girls Film Festival, and more.
Acknowledgements Introduction The Political Economy of Amazon Lina Khan, "Amazon's Anti-Trust Paradox" [Reprint] Ulysses Pascal, "Amazon 1-Click and the Value of Broken Infrastructure" Nikolaus Poechhacker and Eva-Maria Nyckel, "The Logistics of Probability: Anticipatory Shipping and the Production of Markets" [Reprint] Alessandro Delfanti, "Amazonian Fulfillment: Machinic Dispossession and Augmented Despotism" Practices of Resistance Jamie Woodcock and Callum Cant, "Platforms, Resistance, Organizing" xtine burrough, "Disrupting Work with Play on Mturk.com: A Visual Essay" Lilly Irani, "Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk" [Reprint] Amazon and Culture David Arditi, "Unending Consumption: A Prime Example" Lisa Daily, "Amazon Eats Whole Foods" Maillim Santiago, "Virtuous Viewing and Amazon Studios" Environmental Impact Brett Hutchins, Libby Lester, Richard Maxwell, Toby Miller, and Whitney Monaghan, "Quick and Slow Violence: The Age of Billionaire Biodiversity." Emily West, "Decoding Amazon's Climate Pledge: Public Relations and the Platformization of Governance" Patrick Brodie and Paul O'Neill, "Confronting the Regionalism of Amazon Web Services" Appendix Hiba Ali and Nina Sarnelle, "Art and Action" List of Contributors Index About the Editors
