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Description: |
We often think of technology as something that is separate from our bodies, without gender, race, sexual orientation, or (dis)ability. How do preconceived ideas and inherent biases about identity inform the development and use of technology? The field of media archaeology offers a means to understand gendered and racial biases inherited by new technology through studying new and old technologies—and their cultural representations in advertising and media—for successes, failures, and alternative possibilities that were never realized. In a culture that is constantly adopting new technologies and upgrading gadgets, where does the history of technology and the people who developed it go? Women were often the unsung and forgotten laborers who manufactured and operated new technologies. By digging through layers of technological history and challenging the usual narrative of technological progress, this course questions assumptions underlying how technology is built and operates. It examines the relationship of technology to society and our everyday, embodied lives through taking concrete examples of technology, like photography or artificial intelligence, as case studies. We will also consider cultural imagination about technology and its oppressive or emancipatory possibilities. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach in the chosen readings and incorporates films and popular media. Classes rely upon student participation and discussion. Students will acquire critical skills to better understand our technological present with implications for the methodology and practice of creating new media and developing future technologies that break with the biases of the past.
This class can count for a "media history, theory, and practice" requirement for the DMS major and minor. This course may also be taken to fulfill and upper level writing requirement in consultation with the professor. |