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Roopika Risam

@roopikarisam.bsky.social

8K followers 1.9K following 4.2K posts

Chair of Film & Media Studies at Dartmouth 💚, equestrian🐴, author of DATA EMPIRE (Harper & Torva, July 2026) https://roopikarisam.com

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Roopika Risam is an associate professor of film and media studies and of comparative literature and faculty in the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement cluster at Dartmouth College. She was formerly Chair of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education and Associate Professor of Education at Salem State University. She is a scholar of digital and postcolonial humanities. .. more

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 19d

It's UK official! DATA EMPIRE, coming July 9, 2026 🤩

Front page of the bookseller with four author photos and announcements. Mine says "Torva wins seven-way auction for 'breathtakingly ambitious' human history of data"

Torva, an imprint of Transworld, has signed the first trade book by Roopika
Risam, associate professor of digital humanities at Dartmouth, in a seven-
way auction.
Publishing director Alex Christofi acquired UK and Commonwealth rights
to Data Empire: A Human History of Records and Rule from Emma Bal at
Madeleine Milburn. North American rights were pre-empted for six figures
by Sarah Haugen at Harper.
Recommended by the publisher for readers of Nexus and The Age of
Surveillance Capitalism, Data Empire shows how data gathering has been
"fundamental" to the human species' success, driving advancements
throughout history as well as enabling the exercise of power.
The blurb states: "From ancient cave markings and knotted strings to
colonial censuses and modern surveillance, data has always been used to
shape civilisations, uphold empires and control lives. The story of empire is
the story of data - and knowing this history is the first step to breaking its
grip on the future."
Christofi said: "It is breathtakingly ambitious to read data back into the
whole span of human history, from the first clay tokens to the era of
surveillance drones - but it becomes impossible to unsee. Professor Risam
has written a paradigm-shifting book that is going to change how we
understand the struggle to keep control of our own data in the present."

Risam's academic research explores how histories of race, empire and
technology shape the modern world. She is the author of New Digital Worlds,
taught in over 150 universities worldwide, and past president of the
Association for Computers and the Humanities.

"I'm fortunate to be working with Sarah Haugen at Harper and Alex Christofi
at Torva, who understand the urgency and scale of this project and have
shaped it with shared editorial vision, and with Emma Bal at the Madeleine
Milburn Agency, who challenged me to think more daringly about what this
book could be."
Torva will publish Data Empire in hardback and trade paperback on 9th July
2026.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 5h

When Past Roopsi was failing geometry and wondering why anyone would care, she could never have imagined that Future Roopsi would be writing an email about having found a workaround to a polygon problem (mapping, y'all, it turns out...).

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 8h

Have now spent a truly horrifying amount of money on Getty Images for two projects because there isn't enough in the public domain due to the time period I'm working with. And that's with figuring out you can get much cheaper licenses suitable for a DH project if you use the custom rights feature.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 10h

Believe me when I say there are no hot men.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 11h

He says he is surprised I enjoyed it so much!

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 12h

The straight male next to me says yes

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 12h

The two and a half hours are totally worth it for the last scene.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 12h

It turns out they are two different movies! They were also both up for best picture the same year and I have no idea how There Will Be Blood didn’t win.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 12h

I watched the other movie. There was blood. And oil. And Daniel Day Lewis. Definitely not the same film! That last scene, wow.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Just watched No Country for Old Men while thinking it was There Will Be Blood and spent much of the movie very confused about when we would get to Daniel Day Lewis and the oil.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 18h

There is something truly perverse about having to pay Getty Images $146 to licenses a photo of Amy Ashwood Garvey at the Fifth Pan-African Congress. Truly perverse.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 19h

The polishing deck chairs on the Titanic of my promotion dossier (which is itself done but I have so much work to do on one project to make sure it’s ready) was just having a whole conversation with my beloved about whether it’s the Pan-African Data Project or The Pan-African Data Project.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 20h

I sort of live by, make them feel like it was their idea and more flies with honey than vinegar (though do I want flies, really?).

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Definitely. It’s more fun too. One of my mentors would up at a point in her career where she figured out that she wanted to be, in her words, a doula for other people’s work and now I get it.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

More tact, less bridge burning!

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Early 2010s Roopsi… had opinions. And didn’t always know the best way to communicate them.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

The early days of DH, before I learned more tactful and effective ways of saying what I really think were a joy for none, least of all for me!

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Having now redone my CV, due to new guidelines, which required going through every single thing I’ve done over 12 years, it strikes me how much my career has depended on people who gave me chances despite little evidence that it was actually a good idea. Perhaps they regret that.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

It's amazing the kind of stuff you find written about you when you are trying to make sure you didn't miss anything for the "media appearances" section of your CV.

Are you polishing your syllabus while listening, doomscrolling, or tuning
in to pandemic news? Maybe there's no need for news, and you're just
thinking about the coronavirus, for you to add a line like this to your
syllabus,
"Perhaps, like me, you find yourself wondering why read and
write about literature while the world burns? This is the question that
guides our inquiry in this introductory course to graduate studies in
literature.
That's what Roopika Risam, an associate professor of secondary and
higher education and English at Salem State University, wrote in her
course description. The sentiment is a little dark, but maybe these dark
times are all the more reason to study literature.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Also, promotion file :(

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

It totally is... we are going to have to switch platforms and this will be our problem because right now we use one that automatically registers them.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

I'm just a girl, standing in front of a CV, asking journals to all have DOIs.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Omg that was me watching Rocky, wondering why I was watching an art house film and where the machine guns were.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Or to circle back to Tommy Lee Jones opening monologue that I forgot by the time he actually became the main character.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

💀💀💀

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

I loved it.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

Still not sure tbh

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

😂😂😂

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

I was interested in No Country til it stopped being about Josh Brolin and started to be about Tommy Lee Jones. (I get the point of that but it seemed like an abrupt change to totally different film and required remembering the opening monologue from 75 minutes ago.)

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

This is why I wanted to watch There Will Be Blood - I have a colleague who complains about people drinking their milkshake.

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Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 1d

I am not convinced they are not the same movie. Has anyone seen them in the same room? 😂

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