Lanfranco Aceti of FASS edits a new volume for Routledge | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Lanfranco Aceti of FASS edited a recent volume of The Information Society, a world renowned journal published by Routledge.

Connor Graham, Martin Gibbs, and Lanfranco Aceti, eds., “Death, Afterlife and Immortality of Bodies and Data,” The Information Society 29, no. 3: (2013).

Please click here to access the full issue on the Taylor & Francis site: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/utis20/29/3#.UYtUeaL-GvP

Extract from the introduction to the issue

This special issue poses questions concerning death, afterlife and immortality in the age of the Internet. It extends previous work by examining current and emerging practices of grieving and memorializing supported by new media. It suggests that people’s lives today are extended, prolonged and ultimately transformed through the new circulations, repetitions and re-contextualizations on the Internet and other platforms. It also shows that publics are being formed and connected with in new ways and new practices and rituals are emerging, as the traditional notions of the body are being challenged. We argue that these developments have implications for how people will be discovered and conceived of in the future. We consider possible extensions to the research presented here in terms of people, practices and data. Firstly, some sections of the population, in particular those who are the dying and populations in developing countries and the Global South, have largely been neglected to date. Secondly, practices such as (online) suicide and sacrilegious or profane behaviours remain largely uninvestigated. Thirdly, the discussion of the management of the digital self after death has only begun. We conclude by posing further questions concerning the prospect of emerging cities of the dead.

ARTICLES

Millions Now Living Will Never Die: Cultural Anxieties about the Afterlife of Information
Grant David Bollmer

Beyond the Grave: Facebook as a Site for the Expansion of Death and Mourning
Jed R. Brubaker, Gillian R. Hayes, and Paul Dourish

Larger than Life: Digital Resurrection and the Re-enchantment of Society
Alexandra Sherlock

PERSPECTIVES

Designing for Death and Apocalypse: Theodicy of Networks and Uncanny Archives
Denisa Kera

Digital Gravescapes: Digital Memorializing on Facebook
Scott H. Church

The Digital Remains: Social Media and Practices of Online Grief
Jessa Lingel

Perspectives on Virtual Veneration
William Sims Bainbridge

About The Information Society *

The Information Society is a multidisciplinary journal intended to answer questions about the Information Age. It provides a forum for thoughtful commentary and discussion of significant topics in the world of information, such as transborder data flow, regulatory issues, the impact of the information industry, information as a determinant of public and private organizational performance, and information and the sovereignty of the public and private organizational performance, and information and the sovereignty of the public. Its papers analyze information policy issues affecting society. Because of the journal’s international perspective, it will have worldwide appeal to scientists and policymakers in government, education, and industry. Topics covered include:

The rise of virtual communities
Visions and practices of digital libraries
E-commerce and business processes
Evolving notions of information infrastructure
Various forms of "electronic democracy"

Publication office: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106

* The journal description is taken from Taylor & Francis website.