Tung-Hui Hu: At the Ends of Exhaustion, A Door

Wednesday, January 22
Doors: 7pm
Event: 7:30pm

Tung-Hui Hu: At the Ends of Exhaustion, A Door
2025 Theorist in Residence Public Talk

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What happens when exhaustion becomes more than a symptom, but a social condition? Join us for this year’s Theorist in Residence talk with Tung-Hui Hu, as he explores the politics of exhaustion through the strange intimacy of sleep streamers, contemporary art, and a portion of his own lyrical essay on isolation. In “At the Ends of Exhaustion, A Door,” Hu maps how disconnection, fatigue, and infrastructural breakdowns are folded into everyday life—and how, at the outer edges of burnout, the possibility of a door might appear.

Bringing together theory, poetics, and digital culture, Hu’s work challenges us to rethink what it means to experience inertia and endurance in an age defined by relentless connection and disconnection. Expect a talk that defies boundaries by merging academic critique with speculative openings and lyrical deviations.

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Tung-Hui Hu is the author of five books, including Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection (2022) and A Prehistory of the Cloud (2015). His current project, A History of the World in 7 Datasets, continues his exploration of digital infrastructures. A Rome Prize and NEA fellow, he is an associate professor at the University of Michigan, teaching in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and the Digital Studies Institute.