HHIS-381: Cultures of Technology

Digital devices and infrastructures have outsized implications for collective life today. Like all technologies, they are the result of coordinated human activity that produces innovation through research, business, design, and daily life. This class introduces students to the anthropological analysis of these practices, offering tools for thinking critically about the cultural contexts and impacts of emerging technology. What makes particular corners of the world famous as hotbeds of "disruptive" thinking? How do online platforms shape their users and how do users transform these platforms in turn? How does technology reflect and inform contemporary struggles over race, gender, class, colonialism, and governance? By asking questions like these, we will develop tools for understanding technology as a product of cultural practice; an agent of social change; and an object of collective deliberation. Constructed as a seminar, this course will include readings from anthropology, science and technology studies, fiction, and other fields, alongside weekly writing responses and a final design proposal.