Chris Hubbles wins 2018 Litwin Books Award for Ongoing Dissertation Research in the Philosophy of Information

Press release
8/17/2018
Media contact:
Rory Litwin, rory@litwinbooks.com

We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2018 Litwin Books Award for Ongoing Dissertation Research in the Philosophy of Information. We are granting this year’s award to Chris Hubbles of the University of Washington, based on his dissertation project, “No Country for Old Media.” In this work, Heaney seeks to understand the implications of preservation issues for the copyright status of audio-visual materials.

The award committee stated:

“This year’s candidates were all outstanding works of scholarship. The choice was difficult for the jurors. Competency in ethics proper is essential for our field, and we were pleased to see a number of this year’s submissions examining ethics. In the end, the committee found that Chris Hubbles’s work promises to fill an important niche in the profession. Hubble’s’s proposal takes a unique view to the issue of intellectual property theory: preservation. Focusing on the copyright and preservation histories of sound, moving images, and video games, Hubble’s work is eloquent and scholarly. The jury was impressed by the novelty of his argument, the range of literature cited, and his facility integrating historical, legal, philosophical and practice-oriented domains. Hubble’s examination of preservation and concern with material forms in relation to intellectual property is novel, and the jurors expect it will have an impact in many areas of the information field, even including datasets and data-driven research forms.”

The award consists of $1000 and a certificate suitable for framing.

Since this award is for ongoing research, other applicants who are still working on their dissertations will be eligible to enter their work next year, and we encourage them to do so.

For more information about the award, please visit https://litwinbooks.com/award.php.