Simone Browne Explained

Simone Arlene Browne (born 1973) is an author and educator. She is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin,^[1] and the author of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness.

Early life and education

Browne was born in 1973, and grew up in Toronto, Ontario, where she received a BA (with honors), MA, and PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the University of Toronto.^[2] Her 2001 Masters thesis was titled Surveilling the Jamaican body, leisure imperialism, immigration and the Canadian imagination.^[3] Her doctoral dissertation in 2007 was titled Trusted travellers: the identity-industrial complex, race and Canada's permanent resident card.^[4]

Career

Browne is a Professor of Black Studies in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her most recent book, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, published by Duke University Press in 2015, presents a case to consider race and blackness as a central to the field of surveillance studies, and investigates the roots of present-day surveillance in practices originating in slavery and the Jim Crow era.^{[5] [6]} Javier Arbona of the University of California, Davis, said "her wholly original scholarship best captures new kinds of thinking and theorizing in surveillance studies".^[7]

She is a member of Deep Lab, a "congress of cyber-feminist researchers."^[8]

She is also on the executive board of HASTAC, a virtual organization led by a dynamic Steering Committee consisting of innovators from a variety of disciplines.^[9]

Her work, "Not Only Will I Stare," involves the curation of an exhibit about surveillance through black women artists at the University of Texas at Austin.^[10] The exhibit "used the space to showcase selected artists and artwork which reflect the intersections and evolving history of surveillance and the Black community."^[11]

Awards, honors

• Presidential Visiting Fellow for the 2018–2019 academic year, Yale University
• Winner of the 2016 Best Book Prize, Surveillance Studies Network^[12]
• Winner of the 2016 Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association^[13]
• Winner of the 2015 Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communications Technology Research

External links

• Simone Browne, Dark Surveillance: Race, Surveillance and Resistance (Video, 1:04:05)
• Simone Browne: Surveillance in Color (Ep. 125) (Podcast, 20:44)
• Smile, Your'e on Camera: Behind the Lens of 24/7 Surveillance
• Tracking Blackness: a Q&A with Dark Matters Author Simone Browne
• Biocode Mixes Art and Academia to Explore Pigeonholing
• What UC-Berkeley Freshmen are Reading this Summer
• Tactics of Appearance
• 2019 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon panel (video, 55:04; begins at 9:53)

Notes and References

1. Web site: UT College of Liberal Arts. liberalarts.utexas.edu. en. 2018-04-13.
2. News: Bielamowicz. Rebecca. 2016-01-28. 5 Questions: Dr. Simone Browne, Associate Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies. en-US. AMS :: ATX. 2018-04-14.
3. Web site: Browne. Simone Arlene. 2001. Surveilling the Jamaican body : leisure imperialism, immigration and the Canadian imagination. 2018-04-14. library.utoronto.ca. en.
4. Web site: Trusted travellers : the identity-industrial complex, race and Canada's permanent resident card. Browne. Simone Arlene. search.library.utoronto.ca. en. 2018-04-14.
5. Lingel. Jessica. 2016-04-22. Review of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne (Duke University Press, 2015). Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience . en. 2. 2. 1–5. 10.28968/cftt.v2i2.28806. 2380-3312.
6. McGlotten. Shaka. 2017-01-01. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne. American Journal of Sociology. 122. 4. 1305–1307. 10.1086/689272. 0002-9602.
7. Web site: Maroney. Stephanie. May 18, 2015. Humanities Institute » Simone Browne Explores Surveillance through the History of Slavery. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612072846/http://dhi.ucdavis.edu/featured-stories/simone-browne-explores-surveillance-through-the-history-of-slavery. June 12, 2018. 2018-04-16. dhi.ucdavis.edu. en.
8. News: Syfret. Wendy. 2015-07-20. exploring feminist hacktivism with deep lab. en-au. I-d. 2018-04-14.
9. Web site: Leadership. 2020-06-10. HASTAC. en.
10. Web site: S. Nyeda. 2019-03-31. Interview with Simone Browne. 2020-09-14. Yale Herald. en.
11. Web site: Tzanis . Zoe . Simone Browne showcases conversation between Black studies, surveillance in SXSW featured art program 'Not Only Will I Stare' . 2022-08-20 . The Daily Texan.
12. February 28, 2017. Vol 15 No 1 (2017): Race, Communities and Informers, Surveillance & Society. 2018-04-17. ojs.library.queensu.ca. en-US.
13. Web site: Lora Romero Prize ASA. www.theasa.net. en. 2018-04-17.