Paula Bialski

Curriculum

In 2012, I completed my doctoral dissertation at the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University (supervised by Prof. John Urry and Prof. Monika Buscher), which grounded me in the Lancaster tradition of science and technology studies, mobilities studies, and ethnography of new media studies. My book, based on this dissertation, is titled “Becoming Intimately Mobile,” (Peter Lang: 2012), and ethnographically researched hospitality networks (Couchsurfing.com), and ride-sharing websites (Mitfahrgelegenheit.de) in order to understand the relationship between new media, mobility and intimacy, trust, and strangerhood.

Prior to joining Leuphana, I conducted fieldwork at the HafenCity University in Hamburg, (within Prof. Alexa Faerber’s “Low Budget Urbanity” research project situated in the Faculty for Metropolitan Culture), for two sub-projects: “Money Saving in Inter-City Transport: Ride-Sharing Practices, Materialities and Imaginaries,” as well as “Sharing the City: Understanding the new social economy of online hospitality networkers.”

Research interests

Paula Bialski is an ethnographer of new media in everyday life, looking at contexts of usage as well as production, and she frames her research within cultural, social and media theory in general, and science and technology studies in particular.

The goal of her current research project, titled titled “Programmer Worlds,” is to investigate the way in which everyday practices of corporate software developers affect our digital infrastructures. Her previous book, “Becoming Intimately Mobile,” (Peter Lang: 2012), ethnographically researched hospitality networks (Couchsurfing.com), and ride-sharing websites (Mitfahrgelegenheit.de) in order to understand the relationship between new media, mobility and intimacy, trust, and strangerhood.

Teaching

In the past three years at Leuphana, I was responsible for co-convening a new bachelor program – the Major Digital Media. This program, which began in 2013, has given me the rewarding experience of guiding over 100 students through the emerging field of digital media studies. Throughout their studies, I aimed to challenge them with a mix of both theoretical and practice-based courses that immerse them in a critique of media in everyday life.