Laura Norén is a Moore/Sloan Postdoctoral Associate doing ethnographic work in the Center for Data Science at New York University, where she is also an Adjunct Professor in the Stern School of Business and in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication.
Laura Norén
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Writing on Public Books
Are Diamonds Conflict Gifts?
When De Beers launched the ad campaign “A Diamond Is Forever” during the post-WWII jubilance, they faced a generic difficulty associated with gift giving, which is that “among refined and sensitive people presents that are meant to pay tribute to a person must make the money value imperceptible.”1 A gift should be valuable but make […]
Attacking Love
Valentine’s Day evokes thoughts of love … and perhaps disgust. Revulsion arises in response to commercialization and the pressure to express meaningful attachment. But the disgust may also stem from an inherent discomfort with the practice of love in contemporary American life. French public intellectual and philosopher Alain Badiou’s interview-turned-essay In Praise of Love describes […]
Mapping a Young America
Maps are ubiquitous now, embedded in nearly every mobile device, but in the early days of America, maps were far more precious. In Mapping the Nation, Susan Schulten argues that the formation of the United States allowed cartography to become an institutionalized practice in the country. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, the […]
Can Objects Be Evil?
Addiction by Design is a nonfiction page-turner. A richly detailed account of the particulars of video gaming addiction, worth reading for the excellence of the ethnographic narrative alone, it is also an empirically rigorous examination of users, designers, and objects that deepens practical and philosophical questions about the capacities of players interacting with machines designed […]
Rhythms of Risk: The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Silicon Alley
Dubbed “Silicon Alley” in the mid 1990s, New York’s tech scene at the turn of the millennium was a nexus of youth, cool, and well-paid creative jobs for geeks, artists, and writers. When it contracted, in 2002 many 20-something workers faced not only their own lay-offs, but what felt like the demise of an entire […]
