This event is organized by the Northrop Frye Centre.
Note: Event details may change. Please refer to the Northrop Frye Centre’s event listing for the most current information.
Northrop Frye Centre Distinguished Lecture
Professor Nicole Starosielski, “Alternatives, At Scale: New Imaginations for Global Digital Infrastructure”
Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 5:00 p.m.
Alumni Hall, Victoria College, 91 Charles Street West
In person only. Please register using the link below.
About the Talk:
For many years, the internet appeared immaterial, taking shape as a cloud, an abstract network diagram and a world of zeros and ones. A new imaginary has since expanded worldwide: the internet as infrastructure: as buildings, as cables, and as potential threats to the planet and communities. No longer quietly operating in the background, digital infrastructures have become one of the most contentious subjects of the current moment.
This talk draws upon the history of alternative media and technologies to offer new approaches to the study of global digital infrastructures: the integrated systems of data centers, terrestrial and subsea fiber-optic cables, interconnection points and satellite systems that support a global internet. It asks us to imagine: is a global scale of internet infrastructure possible without hyperscale data centers? What lessons can we learn looking beyond AI infrastructures to the array of regional facilities outside dominant centers of network concentration? What other models of digital infrastructure ownership are possible? Can alternatives to our current digital landscape ever operate at a global scale?
Speaker Bio:
Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media at the University of California-Berkeley, conducts research on media, environments and global internet infrastructures ranging from data centers to subsea cables. Starosielski is author or co-editor of over fifty articles and five books, including: The Undersea Network (2015), Media Hot and Cold (2021), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructure (2015), Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media (2021), among others. Starosielski’s most recent projects include Sustainable Subsea Networks, which won the Tech Capital Special Recognition Award in 2026 for its contributions to enhance the sustainability of subsea cable systems. In 2025, Starosielski also launched the Certificate in Global Digital Infrastructure at UC Berkeley, the first university program to introduce students to the technical, economic, legal, environmental and social dimensions of the global Internet’s infrastructure, including both data centers and subsea cables.