Spreading the Word: Culture, Knowledge, Technology_AS/HUMA2920

Winter 2006 Course Schedule

(go to Fall 2005)

MODULE 4: FROM COERCION TO SUBVERSION

January 06: Tactics and Strategies
DeCerteau, Michel. "Making Do." Exerpt from The Practice of Everyday Life. Rendall, Steven, Translator. University of California Press, 1984. (course kit)

January 13: Panopticon and Counter-measures
Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." Excerpts from Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage Books, 2nd edition, 1995. Pp 200-228. (course kit)
*Mini Assignment 3 due (at the beginning of lecture)*

January 20: Art, Media and Social Spaces
Deutsche, Rosalyn. "Agoraphobia." In Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998. Pp. 267-327. (course kit)

January 27: Tactical Media and Politics
Lovink, Geert and Florian Schneider. Virtual world is possible: from tactical media to digital multitudes. Journal de l��Archipel des Revues, November 2003.
*Module 4 Response due (post on the web forum by 8 a.m.)*

MODULE 5: FROM TEXT TO MEANING

February 03: Reading as Active Practice
Hall, Stuart. "Encoding, Decoding." In The Cultural Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999. Pp. 507-517. (course kit)
*Research proposal due (at the beginning of lecture)*

February 10: Performing Resistance
Balliger, Robin. "Sounds of Resistance." In Sounding Off: Music as Subversion/Resistance/ Revolution. New York: Autonomedia. pp. 13-26. (course kit)

February 17: READING WEEK. NO CLASSES.

February 24: The Power of Utopias and Dystopias
Jordan, Tim. "The Virtual Imaginary." In Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet. New York: Routledge, 1999. Pp 179-207, 226-228. (course kit)
*Annotated bibliography due (at the beginning of lecture)*

March 03: The Aesthetics of Technology
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."
- http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC10220/benjamin.html#Top
Brecht, Bertolt. "The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication."
- http://www.tonisant.com/class/2001/fall/brechtradio.htm
Lovink, Geert. "Interview with Stephen Marshall: Guerrilla News Network's Digital Documentaries."
- http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0312/msg00018.html
*Module 5 Response due (post on the web forum by 8 a.m.)*

MODULE 6: TECHNOLOGY, PERCEPTION AND POSSIBILITIES

March 10: The Trap of Technological Determinism
Wilson, Louise. "Cyberwar, God and Television: An interview with Paul Virilio." In Kroker, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, eds. Digital Delirium. Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1997. Pp 41-48. (course kit)
Winner, Langdon. "Techne and Politea." The Whale and the Reactor. A search for limits in an age of high technology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986. pp. 40-58. (course kit)

March 17: Technology, Perception and Culture I
Crary, Jonathan. "Modernity and the Problem of the Observer". Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1990. pp. 1-24. (course kit)

March 24: Technology, Perception and Culture II
Burnett, Ron. "Computer Games and the Aesthetics of Human and Nonhuman Interaction." How Images Think. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2004. pp 167-197. (course kit)
*Module 6 Response due (post on the web forum by 8 a.m.)*

March 31: Final Thoughts and Review
*Final paper due (hand in hard copy at the beginning of lecture)*

Final exam date and location TBA.