Syllabus for Critical Theory B, Fall, 2006

Critical Theory B, Fall 2006: Theory Faces Technoscience
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu; dcarrico@sfai.edu
Thursdays, 9.00-11.45; Office Hours: After class and by appointment.
Course Blog: http://tecblogging.blogspot.com/

Course Description

A technophile is a person to whom we attribute a naïve or uncritical enthusiasm for technology, while a technophobe is a person to whom we attribute a no less uncritical dread of or hostility to technology. But what does it tell us that there is no similarly familiar word to describe a person who is focused on the impact of technoscientific developments in a critical way that pays equally close attention both to their promises and their dangers? Is it really so impossible to conceive of a critical technocentrism equally alive to real promises and alert to real dangers?

Technoscientific change is an ongoing provocation on our personal and public lives. In this course we will focus our attention on some of the ways critical theory has tried to make sense of the ongoing impact of technoscience and technodevelopmental social struggle on public life, cultural forms, creative expression, and ethical discourse.

Our conversation this term will take as its point of departure the assumption that the basic categories through which we make sense of individual and collective agency, dignity, and claims of right are transforming under the pressure of emerging and converging digital networks, genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive medicine, developments in energy, manufacturing, materials science, automation, weapons proliferation, and so on.

Over the course of the term, we will survey some key interventions of critical theory into the problems, values, assumptions, and specificities of contemporary technoscience. Together with these theoretical texts, we will contemplate fiction, film, and policy-making that take up these problems and expresses these values and assumptions in different ways. These texts will sometimes be technophilic, sometimes technophobic. Sometimes they will be freighted with hyperbolic enthusiasm, sometimes with intimations of disaster. Some will see technological development as inherently superhumanizing, some as inherently dehumanizing. We will lodge our own interventions in a hope that refuses nostalgia and a critical realism that refuses the faith in inevitable progress.

In an important sense the course will truly be a collaborative performance, and so our more specific focus and problems and interests will depend in a significant measure on your own circumstances, concerns, and on the texts that you yourselves happen to respond to most forcefully. Every text that we are reading in this class is available online, and I am providing an overabundance of texts for you to choose from. The shape of our conversation, its pace, focus, order will reflect your choices and your responses. It remains to be seen just what conclusions we will find our way to by the end of the term and the end of this conversation.

Grade Breakdown:

Attendance/Participation/Quizzes: 20%
In-Class Presentation: 15%
Three Short Papers, approximately 3pp. each, posted to this blog: 40%
Final Examination: 25%

Texts

Christopher Allen, “Tracing the Evolution of Social Software”
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, “California Ideology”
John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”
Michel Bauwens, "The Political Economy of Peer Production"
Michael Berube, “Life As We Know It”
James Boyle, “The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain”
James Boyle, “Enclosing the Genome?”
David Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!”
Jamais Cascio, “Leapfrog 101” and other entries under the "Leapfrog" keyword at Worldchanging
Jordan Crandall, "Operational Media"
Erik Davis, “Experience Design”
Jacques Ellul, excerpts from The Technological Society
fibreculture, any essay from Issue 5, "Multitudes, Creative Organisation and the Precarious Condition of New Media Labour"
Andrew Freenberg, “Marcuse or Habermas: Two Critiques of Technology”
Donna Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters”
Katherine Hayles, “Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Weiner and
Cybernetic Anxiety”
James Hughes, “Embrace the End of Work”
Don Ihde, "How Could We Ever Believe Science Is Not Political?"
Jeron Lanier, “One Half of a Manifesto”
Lawrence Lessig, “Preface,” and “What Things Regulate?” from Code
Lawrence Lessig, "Insanely Destructive Devices"
C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”
Jessica Litman, “Sharing and Stealing”
Steve Mann, “The Post-Cyborg Path to Deconism”
Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky), “Material Memories”
Annalee Newitz, “Genome Liberation”
Bruce Sterling, “Viridian Design Speech”
Marc Steigler, “The Gentle Seduction”
Paul Virilio, Two Conversations
Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
Mark Winokur, “The Ambiguous Panopticon”
Christian Zemsauer, "Afro-Futurism"
Slavoj Zizek, “Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket”
Slavoj Zizek, "No Sex, Please, We're Posthuman"

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings:

Week One, August 31

Administrative Introduction
Personal Introductions

Week Two September 7

Course Introduction
C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”

Week Three September 14

John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” DC
Marc Steigler, “The Gentle Seduction” Claudia

Week Four September 21

Kristin, Don Ihde, "How Could We Ever Believe Science Is Not Political?"
Michael Berube, “Life As We Know It”

Week Five September 28

Jamais Cascio, “Leapfrog 101” and other entries under the "Leapfrog" keyword at Worldchanging, David C.
David Brin, “Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society!,” Bronwen

Week Six October 5

Slavoj Zizek, “Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket”
Slavoj Zizek, "No Sex, Please, We're Posthuman," Alla

Week Seven October 12

Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” Tony
Donna Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” Chika

Week Eight October 19

Lawrence Lessig, Insanely Destructive Devices, Grey
Paul Virilio, Two Conversations

Week Nine October 26

Annalee Newitz, “Genome Liberation,” Ates
Michel Bauwens, "The Political Economy of Peer Production"

Week Ten November 2

Katherine Hayles, “Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Weiner and Cybernetic Anxiety”
Jeron Lanier, “One Half of a Manifesto”

Week Eleven, November 9:

Desk Set

Week Twelve, November 16:

Colossus: The Forbin Project.

Week Thirteen: November 23: Academic and Administrative Holiday

Week Fourteen: November 30

Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky), “Material Memories”
Mark Winokur, “The Ambiguous Panopticon”

Week Fifteen: December 7


Week Sixteen: December 14