[Commlist] CFC an anthology about amazon

CFC

An Anthology about Amazon

Since its founding in 1994, Amazon has steadily and inexorably become 
probably the most visible and easily recognized e-commerce platform in 
the world. Amazon websites receive nearly 2.5 trillion visits per annum, 
and in 2018 Amazon’s share of e-commerce activity in the US hit almost 
50%. Even while Amazon has struggled to cope with the unexpected demands 
of the Covid-19 moment, its dominance in the US and European markets has 
remained unquestioned and mostly unchallenged as projections and 
expectations continue to be revised upwards by market analysts.

During the two decades or so of its rise, Amazon.com has been at the 
forefront of the majority of Silicon Valley’s technological  
innovations: efforts to index the world; simplify and automate 
e-payments (e.g. 1-Click); facilitate e-reading (e.g. Topaz, Kindle, 
etc.); stream digital multimedia content (e.g. Audible, Video on Demand, 
Prime Video, MP3 Store); personalize the internet and implement 
recommendation engines; incorporate machine learning (e.g. Mechanical 
Sensei, Amabot); develop voice command through natural language 
processing (e.g. Alexa); domesticate AI devices (like Echo and the suite 
of similar devices hosting Alexa technology); scan the world’s books 
(e.g. Search Inside the Book), implement web analytics and ad sales 
(e.g. Clickriver); map the world’s roadways and offer street views (e.g. 
Block View); facilitate the gig economy (e.g. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 
Amazon Fresh); automate hiring, firing, and labor management; develop 
facial recognition and security software (e.g. Rekognition) for 
domestic, commercial and governmental use;  and, perhaps most 
importantly, offer server services like web hosting and virtual machines 
for advanced computation through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

For 26 years, Amazon has either been the first to imagine and implement 
these and other technological innovations, or has been quick to perfect 
its own versions of new features developed in Silicon Valley by poaching 
key employees from rivals, acquiring smaller companies, developing 
in-house versions, and throwing its weight around as the premier 
e-commerce platform in the United States.

We are currently compiling an anthology that will try to give an account 
of the multifaceted—indeed, omnipresent and ubiquitous—activities and 
presence of Amazon. The anthology will publish original contributions by 
major scholars in the field, and also republish crucial or seminal 
articles about Amazon. And we are about to sign a contract for the 
anthology with a major publisher.

At this moment we would like to solicit new contributions in several 
areas related to Amazon which we think have been undertreated in 
scholarship. If you have work, or would like to develop work, or can 
suggest work, that fits broadly into any of the following themes, please 
contact us to talk about it. We would want to have finished 
contributions by the end of 2021 and would like to receive initial 
communication and inquiries by April 15^th .

  * Direct media production by Amazon and its subsidiaries
  * The relation of Amazon’s enterprises to on the environment and
    ecological issues
  * Amazon and race, especially in regard to Amazon’s labor practices
  * The story of Amazon post-Covid 19

Paul Smith, Professor of Cultural Studies & Global Affairs, George Mason U

Alex Monea, Assistant Professor of English & Cultural Studies, George 
Mason U

Maillim Santiago, Cultural Studies, George Mason U.

Please email us: (psmith5 /at/ gmu.edu) <mailto:(psmith5 /at/ gmu.edu)>, 
amonea@gmu,edu, (msantia7 /at/ gmu.edu)



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