March 24: Protocol Ecologies Symposium

March 24, 2026
8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Mountain Time
CASE E330, University of Colorado Boulder

The fate of the world may depend on protocols—from climate treaties to AI guardrails, from Indigenous stewardship to diasporic cultures. It is a concept that has spread far and wide, but scholarship has yet to take seriously the breadth and power of the concept.

This event introduces both the theory and practice of protocols. It features a keynote talk by a leading theorist of protocol media, Johannes Bennke, followed by a panel including Colorado protocol practitioners: 

Breakfast provided for registered guests.

Learn more and register.

Magic Mountain Talks: Tony Tulathimutte on gender and comedy in fiction, in conversation with Hermione Hoby

March 19, 2026
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

MEDLab, along with collaborators on and off campus, is helping to build a new event series around the intersection of literature and politics. The events take place at Trident Booksellers & Cafe, an employee-owned business. This month:

Tony Tulathimutte is the author of Private Citizens and Rejection, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. He’s received a Whiting Award and an O. Henry Award, and has written for The Paris Review, N+1, The New York Times, The Nation, and others. He also runs CRIT, a writing class in Brooklyn.

Hermione Hoby is the author of the novels Neon in Daylight, which was twice listed as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and Virtue, which was shortlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature award. She is a 2024 Macdowell Fellow in Literature and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Guardian, The New York Times, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Raised in London, she lives in Boulder, Colorado.

This event is currently full—but all the more reason to check out our packed schedule for future events! Learn more and register.

Podcast: What is the future of digital capitalism?

MEDLab's radio show, Looks Like New, comes out the fourth Thursday of every month on KGNU, 88.5 FM, or online as a podcast. Last month's episode is now available:

Kadallah Burrowes sits down with political economist Nick Srnicek to examine the rise of platform capitalism and the forces shaping today’s digital economy.

The conversation moves beyond technological hype to focus on labor, automation, and political possibility. Rather than framing automation as a simple story of job replacement, Srnicek argues that digital systems reorganize work through surveillance, algorithmic management, and precarious employment structures. As platforms increasingly function as social infrastructure, questions of governance, ownership, and democratic accountability become unavoidable. This episode challenges listeners to see the digital economy not as inevitable, but as a political construction one whose future remains open to collective imagination and action.

Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or directly through our website. You can also follow the show on Instagram, Mastodon, and X.