Ganaele Langlois

Textile has been used as a medium of communication since the prehistoric period. Up until the 19th century, civilizations throughout the world manipulated thread and fabric to communicate in a way that would astound many of us now. Unlike text and images, textile is haptic and three-dimensional. Its meaning is unfixed, constantly shifting as it circulates between different owners and creators. In How Textile Communicates, Ganaele Langlois dissects textile’s unique capacity for communication through a range of global case studies, before examining the profound impact of colonialism on textile practice and the appropriation of this medium by capitalist systems. A thought-provoking contribution to the fields of both fashion and communication studies, Langlois’ writing challenges readers’ preconceptions and shines new light on the profound impact of textiles on human communication.

Textile has been used as a medium of communication since the prehistoric period. Up until the 19th century, civilizations throughout the world manipulated thread and fabric to communicate in a way that would astound many of us now. Unlike text and images, textile is haptic and three-dimensional. Its meaning is unfixed, constantly shifting as it circulates between different owners and creators. In How Textile Communicates, Ganaele Langlois dissects textile’s unique capacity for communication through a range of global case studies, before examining the profound impact of colonialism on textile practice and the appropriation of this medium by capitalist systems. A thought-provoking contribution to the fields of both fashion and communication studies, Langlois’ writing challenges readers’ preconceptions and shines new light on the profound impact of textiles on human communication.

More important than flagging things “really fake” is to understand why they are dismissed as fake The new truth is the one that circulates: digital truth emerges from lists, databases, archives, and conditions of storage. Multiple truths may be activated through search, link, and retrieve queries. Alexandra Juhasz, Ganaele Langlois, and Nishant Shah respond by taking up story, poetry, and other human logics of care, intelligence, and dignity to explore sociotechnological and politico-aesthetic emergences in a world where information overload has become a new ontology of not-knowing. Their feminist digital methods allow considerations of internet things through alternative networked internet time: slowing down to see, honor, and engage with our past; invoking indeterminacy as a human capacity that lets multiple truths commingle on a page or in a body; and saving the truths of ourselves and our others differently from the corporate internet’s perpetual viral movement. Writing across their own shared truisms, actors, and touchstones, the authors propose creative tactics, theoretical overtures, and experimental escape routes built to a human scale as ways to regain our capacities to know and tell truths about ourselves.

From the social media-based 2008 Obama election campaign to the civic protest and political revolutions of the 2011 Arab Spring, the past few years have been marked by a widespread and complex shift in the political landscape, as the rise of participatory platforms – such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs – have multiplied the venues for political communication and activism. This book explores the emergence of a permanent campaign – the need for constant readiness – on networked communication platforms, focusing on political moments, crises and elections in Canada, the U.S.A., and Australia. The book chapters investigate the proliferation of new political actors and communicators: political bloggers, advocacy groups, diverse publics, and political party staff as they engage in political maneuvers across participatory platforms. With in-depth analyses of some of the most well-known participatory media today, this book offers a critical assessment of the constant efforts at managing the plurality of voices that characterize contemporary politics.

From the social media-based 2008 Obama election campaign to the civic protest and political revolutions of the 2011 Arab Spring, the past few years have been marked by a widespread and complex shift in the political landscape, as the rise of participatory platforms – such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs – have multiplied the venues for political communication and activism. This book explores the emergence of a permanent campaign – the need for constant readiness – on networked communication platforms, focusing on political moments, crises and elections in Canada, the U.S.A., and Australia. The book chapters investigate the proliferation of new political actors and communicators: political bloggers, advocacy groups, diverse publics, and political party staff as they engage in political maneuvers across participatory platforms. With in-depth analyses of some of the most well-known participatory media today, this book offers a critical assessment of the constant efforts at managing the plurality of voices that characterize contemporary politics.