Robert Seyfert

Bio: Robert Seyfert is an academic researcher from University of Duisburg-Essen. The author has contributed to research in topics: High-frequency trading & Algorithmic trading. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 35 publications receiving 462 citations. Previous affiliations of Robert Seyfert include University of Konstanz & European University Viadrina.

Beyond Personal Feelings and Collective Emotions: Toward a Theory of Social Affect

Abstract: In the Sociology of Emotion and Affect Studies, affects are usually regarded as an aspect of human beings alone, or of impersonal or collective atmospheres. However, feelings and emotions are only specific cases of affectivity that require subjective inner selves, while the concept of ‘atmospheres’ fails to explain the singularity of each individual case. This article develops a theory of social affect that does not reduce affect to either personal feelings or collective emotions. First, I use a Spinozist understanding of the ‘body’ to conceptualize the receptivity and mutual constitution of bodies, to show how affects do not ‘belong’ to anybody; they are not solely attributable either to the human or to any kind of body alone, but emerge in situations of the encounter and interaction (between bodies). Next I build upon Jean-Marie Guyau’s concept of transmissions to show how we can theorize affect as an emerging transmission between and among bodies. Finally, I demonstrate how we now have a complete conce...

On Studying Algorithms Ethnographically: Making Sense of Objects of Ignorance

Abstract: In this article, we make sense of financial algorithms as new objects of concern for organizational ethnography. We conceive of algorithms as ‘objects of ignorance’ jeopardizing traditional ethnogr...

Algorithmic Cultures : Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies

Abstract: To make sense of the increasingly complex information systems that now undergird so many social enterprises, some social scientists have turned their attention to the "algorithms" that animate them. This "critical sociology of algorithms" (see Gillespie and Seaver 2015 for an evolving catalog of this work) has revived longstanding concerns about the automation and rationalization of human sociality, the potential for discrimination inside of bureaucratic and formulaic procedures, and the implications of sociotechnical systems for the practices that depend on them. Algorithms offer a powerful focal point for this line of inquiry: a hidden core inside these complex systems that appears to hold the secret, embedded values within. They are instructions, after all, the mechanic ghost in the machine? Tempting. (Gillespie, forthcoming; Ziewitz 2015) But, in our enthusiasm to install the algorithm as our new object of study, we (myself included) may have fallen into the most obvious of intellectual traps: the tendency to reify the very phenomenon we hope to explain. Much of this work positions “the algorithm” as the thing to be explained, as the force acting on the world. This is hardly a new misstep; rather, it is on that has plagued the sociology of technology. (Bimber 1994; Gillespie, Boczkowski, and Foot 2014; Smith and Marx 1994; Sterne 2014; Wyatt 2008)

Cultures of high-frequency trading: mapping the landscape of algorithmic developments in contemporary financial markets

Abstract: As part of ongoing work to lay a foundation for social studies of high-frequency trading (HFT), this paper introduces the culture(s) of HFT as a sociological problem relating to knowledge and practice. HFT is often discussed as a purely technological development, where all that matters is the speed of allocating, processing and transmitting data. Indeed, the speed at which trades are executed and data transmitted is accelerating, and it is fair to say that algorithms are now the primary interacting agents operating in the financial markets. However, we contend that HFT is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon. More specifically, both individuals and collective agents – such as algorithms – might be considered cultural entities, charged with very different ways of processing information, making sense of it and turning it into knowledge and practice. This raises issues relating to situated knowledge, distributed cognition and action, the assignment of responsibility when regulating high-speed alg...

The Problem with NatureOur Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution

Abstract: The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction. It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening. For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose their children's' sex, height, colour, personality traits and intelligence. It will even be possible to create 'superhumans' by mixing human genes with those of other animals for extra strength or longevity. But is this desirable? What are the moral and political consequences? Will it mean anything to talk about 'human nature' any more? Is this the end of human beings? Post Human Society is a passionate analysis of the greatest political and moral problem ever to face the human race.