Digital Studies Institute (DSI)

Ellie Abrons, DSI Director, welcoming students at the beginning of a DSI Lecture Series event in Fall 2023.

The University of Michigan’s Digital Studies Institute (DSI) was established in 2019 to serve as LSA’s home for innovative scholarship on digital technologies and culture, and to address the ethical, cultural, social, and aesthetic implications of these rapidly developing technologies from a liberal arts perspective. From its 2014 beginning as a pilot program within the Department of American Culture, the DSI has grown into the largest, most comprehensive initiative for digital scholarship in higher education and is well-positioned to be the nation’s leader in the study of digital culture.

The DSI is a center for research and dialogue where faculty, students, and visitors focus their inquiry on technology, digital culture, and social justice. We seek to address the impact of transformations in personal identity, instances of marginalization and unequal access, and the proliferating ethical challenges of digital spaces. Questions concerning the implications of technology on race, disability, gender, sexuality, class, power, and identity are foregrounded in courses for undergraduates and graduate students, an annual summer institute, and a diverse range of public programs.

Scholars and students participating in the Digital Studies Summer Institute, “Digital IDEAS” in Summer 2023.

The DSI also supports an undergraduate minor and a graduate certificate with a diverse range of course offerings. Course topics range from the history of the internet, to the rise of artificial intelligence, to digital technologies as tools for surveillance, or the intersection of race and video games, and critical practices in XR design and social media activism. Courses prepare students to be informed users of technology and astute and pragmatic critics of our digital present and future.

DIGITAL STUDIES INSTITUTE STRATEGIC FUND - 336485

The strategic fund is critical to the Institute’s ability to pursue new opportunities and supplement whenever gaps appear. Contributions of all sizes to the DSI Strategic Fund will help to support crucial activities such as undergraduate and graduate needs; new technology; activities that enrich our curriculum; faculty recruitment and research; public programming bringing speakers to Ann Arbor and distribution of U-M research beyond the campus walls, and other initiatives that support our academic mission.