Author Dr. Aarushi Bhandari will discuss her book, “Attention and Alienation: The International Political Economy of Attention,” from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 in the Fresno State Library’s Table Mountain Rancheria Reading Room.

Bhandari is an assistant professor of sociology at Davidson College, and her recent book weaves narratives about growing up during the Nepali Civil War and the internet boom from 1990 to 2020. In the lecture, she will discuss how the attention economy extracts data from users as a form of unpaid and ultimately alienating labor. Bhandari explores how common forms of leisure, like social media use, impoverish users both socially and materially.

The event is open to the community and organized by the Library and the Department of Sociology. The event is cosponsored by the Division of Graduate Studies, Department of Economics, M.K. Gandhi Center and the College of Social Sciences.

Students, faculty and staff can RSVP for an additional workshop from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in Library, Room 2206 before the event. Bhandari will discuss how participants can turn their interests into their next professional project, whether an honors thesis, dissertation, research initiative or passion project.

Bhandari has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her digital mindfulness project. She also teaches courses on statistics and advanced quantitative methods, digital media, popular culture, globalization, social movements and mindfulness. Her next book, “Happily Ever Algorithm,” studies “romantasy” genre writers and readers to understand the sociological implications of the burgeoning body of literature.

For more information, contact Dr. Sophia Boutilier at sophiaboutilier@mail.fresnostate.edu.