We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2024 Book Prize: Profiles and Plotlines: Data Surveillance in Twenty-first Century Literature, by Katherine D. Johnston, published by University Of Iowa Press.
Profiles and Plotlines centres data profiling and surveillance in the context of contemporary fiction, studying how the discussion of algorithms in literature offers an oblique eye to better understand society. It focuses on texts that are subtle, and moves beyond dystopian texts that we often look at to understand surveillance. Johnston uses fiction to showcase the problems of algorithms, data, and the profiles they create in novel ways, asking us to think about surveillance for and as storytelling. This book moves surveillance studies forward as a field by bringing it into further conversation with fiction and literature studies. Johnston pushes the bounds of how we understand surveillance and the profile economy, in how fiction highlights how it is about knowledge production and labour relations, not just about privacy.
Congratulations to the author for her excellent work!
There were a number of strong books nominated for the award, and we thank all the authors for their contributions to the field.
The 2024 Book Prize Committee was Ciara Bracken-Roche (Chair), Fareed Ben-Youssef, Torin Monahan, and Greg Wise
