Nick Seaver

Nick Seaver is an assistant professor of Anthropology and core faculty in Science, Technology, and Society at Tufts University. His research examines the cultural theorizing of technical experts, particularly regarding music, taste, and attention. He has written on topics including the commercial use of “context,” anthropological theories of trapping, and ethnographic methodologies for studying algorithmic systems. His current book project, Computing Taste, explores the theories used by developers of algorithmic music recommender systems to explain and justify their work. He is starting a new, large-scale ethnographic project on the technocultural life of attention in the contemporary United States. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing.