Writing A Precis, Co-Facilitating Discussion: A Guide

Critical Theory B: Fall 2008

One of the key assignments for our course will be your co-facilitation of class discussion of an assigned text. This assignment also requires that you generate a précis of the text you are taking responsibility for. This precis should provide a point of departure for your contribution to the discussion in class, and you will also hand it in to me at the end of the session. I expect you to post your precis to our course blog the Friday prior to the Tuesday class meeting you are co-facilitating.

Think of this precis as a basic paraphrase of the argumentative content of a text.

Here is a broad and informal guide for a precis, consisting of question you should ask of a text as you are reading it, and again after you have finished reading it. Don't treat this as an ironclad template, but as a rough approach to producing a precis -- knowing that a truly fine and useful précis need not necessarily satisfy all of these interventions.

A precis should try to answer fairly basic questions such as:

1. What is the basic gist of the argument?
2. To what audience is it pitched primarily? Does it anticipate and respond to possible objections?
3. What do you think are the argument's stakes in general? To what end is the argument made?

a. To call assumptions into question?
b. To change convictions?
c. To alter conduct?
d. To find acceptable compromises between contending positions?

4. Does it have an explicit thesis? If not, could you provide one in your own words for it?
5. What are the reasons and evidence offered up in the argument to support what you take to be its primary end? What crucial or questionable warrants (unstated assumptions the argument takes to be shared by its audience, often general attitudes of a political, moral, social, cultural nature) does the argument seem to depend on? Are any of these reasons, evidences, or warrants questionable in your view? Do they support one another or introduce tensions under closer scrutiny?
6. What, if any, kind of argumentative work is being done by metaphors and other figurative language in the piece?
7. Are there key terms in the piece that seem to have idiosyncratic definitions, or whose usages seem to change over the course of the argument?

As you see, a piece that interrogates a text from these angles of view will yield something between a general book report and a close reading, but one that focuses on the argumentative force of a text. For the purposes of our class, such a precis succeeds if it manages

1. to convey the basic flavor of the argument and
2. provides a good point of departure for a class discussion.

For Thursday

Links for Thurs. are hot. I'm expecting some precis/co-facilitation questions, quotes to appear on the blog very soon?

Syllabus for Critical Theory B, Fall 2008

Theory and Technoscience, Peer to Peer

Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu
Course Blog: http://tecblogging.blogspot.com/

Att/Part: 20%; Report: 20%; Precis and Co-Facilitation: 20% Keywords: 20% Final Project: 20% (Approximately and Provisionally)

Provisional Schedule of Meetings

Week One | September 4
Introductions

Week Two | September 11
Lessig, Code
Benkler, Wealth of Networks

Week Three | September 18
May, The Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto [ian]
Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto [jessie]
Shirky, RIAA Succeeds Where Cypherpunks Failed

Week Four | September 25
Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [charlie]
Barbrook, The California Ideology [katy]
Purdy, God of the Digirati [peter]

Week Five | October 2
Hayles, Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Weiner and Cybernetic Anxiety [brittany]
Lanier, One Half of a Manifesto [jeremy]

Week Six | October 9
Heidegger, Question Concerning Technology
Noble, Religion of Technology [kimmy]

Week Seven | October 16
Arendt, Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man
Lewis, The Abolition of Man [rachel]
Steigler, The Gentle Seduction [kati]

Week Eight | October 23
Film: Desk Set

Week Nine | October 30
Litman, Sharing and Stealing [lisa]
Boyle, Second Enclosure
Boyle, Enclosing the Genome

Week Ten | November 6
Chomsky and Herman, Propaganda Model [jennifer]
Digby, Netroots As A Revolutionary Force
Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
Bollier, Commoners As An Emerging Political Force [ling]

Week Eleven | November 13
Bauwens, The Political Economy of Peer Production
Lessig, Insanely Destructive Devices [jeramee]
Sterling, Maneki Neko

Week Twelve | November 20
Chun, Control and Freedom
Brin, Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society! [manae]
Cascio, Participatory Panopticon [nicki]
Mann, Sousveillance

Week Thirteen | November 27 -- Academic and Administrative Holiday

Week Fourteen | December 4
Berube, Life As We Know It [daniel]
Mundy, Bionic Parents and Techno-Children
Newitz, Breeding the Future [lauren]
Zizek, Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket

Week Fifteen | December 11
Haraway, The Promises of Monsters [janett]
Latour, A Plea for Earthly Sciences

FINAL!

You will be handing in your final exam to me at the beginning of our last scheduled class meeting together.

PART I

Here, in alphabetical order, are seventy-one Green Keywords that have figured centrally in various ways in a number of the texts we have read and discussed over the course of this term.

1. "Abrasion,"
2. "Agroforestry,"
3. "Backstory,"
4. "Biodiversity,"
5. "Biomimicry,"
6. "Biopiracy,"
7. "Bioregional"
8. "Biosphere,"
9. "Capital,"
10. "Climate Change,"
11. "Commodification,"
12. "Commons,"
13. "Companion Planting,"
14. "Consensus Science,"
15. "Cradle-to-Cradle,"
16. "Culture Industry,"
17. "Deep Ecology,"
18. "Democracy,"
19. "Denial,"
20. "Depletion,"
21. "Ecofeminism,"
22. "Ecology,"
23. "Economy,"
24. "Ecosocialism,"
25. "Ecosystem,"
26. "Ecotage,"
27. "Endangered Species,"
28. "Energy Descent,"
29. "Environmentalism,"
30. "Externality,"
31. "Field Worker,"
32. "Footprint,"
33. "Greenhouse Gas,"
34. "Greenwashing,"
35. "Guerilla Gardening,"
36. "Heirloom Produce,"
37. "Industrial Agriculture,"
38. "Integrated Pest Management,"
39. "Leapfrogging,"
40. "Limit,"
41. "Luddite,"
42. "Malthusian,"
43. "Monoculture,"
44. "Native,"
45. "Natural Capitalism,"
46. "Natural Capital,"
47. "Naturalist,"
48. "Nature,"
49. "Objectification,"
50. "Offsets,"
51. "Organic,"
52. "Recycling/Downcycling,"
53. "Permaculture,"
54. "Pollution,"
55. "Polyculture,"
56. "Post-Scarcity,"
57. "Precautionary Principle,"
58. "Primitivism,"
59. "Profit,"
60. "Renewable,"
61. "Seed Saving/Seed Sharing,"
62. "Service/End Use,"
63. "Sustainability,"
64. "Technical Metabolism,"
65. "Toxicity,"
66. "Triple Bottom Line,"
67. "Use Value/Exchange Value,"
68. "Vegetarianism,"
69. "Viridian,"
70. "Waste,"
71. "Wilderness"

Choose fifty Keywords from this list. Organize your chosen Keywords into three separate, conceptually connected, sets. You can use any criteria that seems useful to you to organize these sets. The only rule is that no resulting set can contain fewer than six Keywords.

Each set should have a title or heading that indicates the criteria governing inclusion to that set. Once you have organized your three sets in this way, briefly define each one of the Keywords you have included in each set in your own words. Ideally, your definitions should be as clear and as concise as possible. These definitions should be a matter of a sentence or two rather than a paragraph or two. They are definitions, not essays or explanations. It should be clear from your definitions why each of the Keywords in each of the three sets are conceptually connected to each other, but it is also crucial that no terms within a set are to be treated as synonymous, and that your definitions distinguish Keywords from one another (even if the resulting distinctions are sometimes matters of nuance).

Once you have defined all these Keywords, provide a short quotation (feel free to edit and prune to keep your chosen citations properly pithy) from one of the texts we have read this term to accompany your definition. The quotation you choose can be a definition you found helpful in crafting your own definition, it can be an example or illustration you found especially clarifying, it can a matter of contextualization, framing, or history that you found illuminating, it can even be something you disagreed with so strongly it helped you understand better what you really think yourself.

Obviously, there are endless ways of organizing these sets, defining their Keywords, distinguishing them from one another, and connecting them up to the texts we have read. What matters for this first part of the exam is that you follow the rules of the exercise, not that you arrive at some single "right answer" you may think I have in mind.

PART II:

Write a short essay (5pp.), in which you show that the conception(s) of "nature" -- understood as intelligibility, as sublimity, as home, as resource, as object, as wilderness, as custom, or what have you -- assumed or expressed in the argument of one or two (at most two) of the texts we have read together this term yields unexpected insights or problems for that text, or provides the basis for an unexpected commonality or continuity between two texts texts you are comparing in your reading. (How do you know the problem or insight you are calling attention to in your reading is sufficiently strong to warrant consideration as "unexpected" in the sense I mean? That's easy: It must simply be a strong enough claim that you can imagine an intelligent opposition to it.)

Some Terms

Some of the terms we've discussed the past few weeks, most of which are likely to appear on the final. The list is not yet complete. But it would be a good idea to start thinking about these terms in advance. Also, I thought it might be fun to open the list to you all. What are terms that should appear but are not yet here? Add them in Comments. Check back here over the next couple of weeks, the list will continue to expand.

"Abrasion,"
"Backstory,"
"Biodiversity,"
"Biomimicry,"
"Biopiracy,"
"Biosphere,"
"Climate Change,"
"Commons,"
"Companion Planting,"
"Consensus Science,"
"Cradle-to-Cradle,"
"Deep Ecology,"
"Democracy,"
"Denial,"
"Ecology,"
"Ecofeminism,"
"Ecosocialism,"
"Endangered Species,"
"Externality,"
"Footprint,"
"Integrated Pest Management,"
"Leapfrogging,"
"Limit,"
"Monoculture,"
"Natural Capitalism,"
"Nature,"
"Organic,"
"Recycling/Downcycling,"
"Permaculture,"
"Pollution,"
"Polyculture,"
"Post-Scarcity,"
"Precautionary Principle,"
"Sustainability,"
"Technical Metabolism,"
"Toxicity/Abrasion,"
"Triple Bottom Line,"
"Viridian,"
"Wilderness"

Syllabus

Those having trouble scrolling back to the syllabus links, this should take you there. Those who have a chance, check out this piece by Vandana Shiva as well. Lots to talk about tomorrow, see you then!

Provisional Syllabus

Critical Theory B: Nature in Theory, Fall 2007

Instructor: Dale Carrico; dalec@berkeley.edu
Course Site: http://tecblogging.blogspot.com/

Grade Breakdown:
Attendance/Participation 20%
Co-facilitate Class Discussion/Precis 20%
In-Class Report 20%
Final Exam: 40%

Week One | Introductions

August 30
Administrative Introduction, Personal Introductions

Week Two | Contemporary Environmentalist Idols and Transcendentalists Precursors

September 6

Curtis White, Idols of Environmentalism, Ecology of Work
Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Nature; Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

Week Three | Ecofeminism

September 13

Cathleen McGuire and Colleen McGuire, Ecofeminist Visions
Rosemary Radford, Ruether, Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature, from Carol Adams, ed., Ecofeminism and the Sacred
Catherine Keller, Dark Vibrations: Ecofeminism and the Democracy of Creation
Greta Gaard, Toward a Queer Ecofeminism

Week Four | Ecosocialism

September 20

An Ecosocialist Manifesto by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy
Joel Kovel, Why Ecosocialism Today?
Common Voice, Ecosocialism
James O'Conner: Selling Nature
Mike Davis, Slum Ecology
Walter R. Sheasby's Amazon Guide: "So You'd Like to… Replace Capitalism with Green Socialism"

Week Five | Natural Capitalism

September 27

Paul Hawken: Natural Capitalism
A Roadmap for Natural Capitalism, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken
Michael Albert: Natural Capitalism?
Wayne Normand and Chris MacDonald, Getting to the Triple Bottom Line
James Boyle, Enclosing the Genome
Peter Barnes: Capitalism, 3.0
Time to Upgrade
A Short History of Capitalism
The Limits of Government
The Limits of Privatization
Reinventing the Commons
Trusteeship of Creation
Universal Birthrights
Sharing Culture
Building the Commons Sector
What You Can Do

Week Six | Deep Ecology

October 4

Arne Naess, The Shallow and the Deep
Introduction to Deep Ecology, An Interview with Michael E. Zimmerman, by Alan Atkisson
E.P. Pister, The Rights of Species and Ecosystems
Church of Deep Ecology
Murray Bookchin, Social Ecology Versus Deep Ecology

Week Seven | Some Victoriana

October 11

Guardian UK Review: Victorian Holocausts
Amartya Sen NYT Review, Victorian Holocausts
Mike Davis, Victorian Holocausts, Chapter One.
Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying
John Stuart Mill, On Nature

Week Eight | Critique of Technological Society

October 18

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society
John Zerzan, Agriculture
John Zerzan, Technology
John Zerzan, Why Primitivism?
Marc Stiegler, The Gentle Seduction

Week Nine | Bright Green or Dim?


October 25

Bruce Sterling, Viridian Design
Grist on Worldchanging's Bright Green Principles (read the Comments!)
Apple Computer: Fun for You, Toxic for the Environment
When 1st Life Meets 2nd Life
Kirkpatrick Sale, Lessons from the Luddites
The Californian Ideology

Week Ten | Toxic World

November 1

Al Gore on Silent Spring
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, The Obligation to Endure
Michael Braungart, Intelligent Materials Pooling: Evolving a Profitable Technical Metabolism
What Happened at Bhopal?
Alex Kirby, Contaminated Breastmilk
Blacksmith Institute, 10 Most Polluted Places

Week Eleven | Alternative Agricultures

November 8

Malcome Scully, The Destructive Nature of Our Bountiful Harvests
Introduction to Permaculture: Concepts and Resources
Deborah Madison, Grace Before Dinner
Ted Nace, Breadcast of Democracy
Jack Kittredge, Pesticides in Food
AMS/USDA, Organic Food Standards and Labels
Sustainable Agrigulture Delivers the Crops

Week Twelve | Extracting Ourselves from Extraction

November 15

Saul Landau, Ronald Reagan and Bottled Water
National Resources Defense Council, Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
BBC: World Water Crisis
The Coming Water Wars: Demography and Water Resources
The Coming Water Wars: Chart
Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Eating Fossil Fuels
Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency
Howard Kunstler, A Five Part Online Video Exploration: The Long Emergency
Chris Vernon, Agriculture Meets Peak Oil

Week Thirteen

November 22 Thanksgiving Holiday

Week Fourteen | The Death of Environmentalism

November 29

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, The Death of Environmentalism

Don't Fear the Reapers, A Grist Special Series on the Alleged Death of Environmentalism

Week Fifteen | An Inconvenient Truth

December 6

"An Inconvenient Truth" (Screening)
Closing Remarks Hand in Take Home Final Exam

Readings for Week Two

A Provisional Syllabus for the Whole Term will be ready in a few days. But here's what we're covering next week:

Part One:

Curtis White: Idols of Environmentalism and Part Two: The Ecology of Work

Break

Part Two:

From Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Beauty. Read more, if you like.

From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, Where I Lives and What I Lived For, Spring, Conclusion. Read more, if you like.

It would be great to have at least a couple of folks step up to co-facilitate the discussion of these early texts. Talk to me after class tomorrow or e-mail me over the weekend if any of these texts appeals to you with special forcefulness.

Co-facilitating Discussions and Writing a Precis

One of the key assignments for our course will be your co-facilitation of class discussion of an assigned text. This assignment also requires that you generate a précis of the text you are taking responsibility for. This precis should provide a point of departure for your contribution to the discussion in class, and you will also hand it in to me at the end of the session.

Think of this precis as a basic paraphrase of the argumentative content of a text.

Here is a broad and informal guide for a precis, consisting of question you should ask of a text as you are reading it, and again after you have finished reading it. Don't treat this as an ironclad template, but as a rough approach to producing a precis -- knowing that a truly fine and useful précis need not necessarily satisfy all of these interventions.

A precis should try to answer fairly basic questions such as:

1. What is the basic gist of the argument?
2. To what audience is it pitched primarily? Does it anticipate and respond to possible objections?
3. What do you think are the argument's stakes in general? To what end is the argument made?

a. To call assumptions into question?
b. To change convictions?
c. To alter conduct?
d. To find acceptable compromises between contending positions?

4. Does it have an explicit thesis? If not, could you provide one in your own words for it?
5. What are the reasons and evidence offered up in the argument to support what you take to be its primary end? What crucial or questionable warrants (unstated assumptions the argument takes to be shared by its audience, often general attitudes of a political, moral, social, cultural nature) does the argument seem to depend on? Are any of these reasons, evidences, or warrants questionable in your view? Do they support one another or introduce tensions under closer scrutiny?
6. What, if any, kind of argumentative work is being done by metaphors and other figurative language in the piece?
7. Are there key terms in the piece that seem to have idiosyncratic definitions, or whose usages seem to change over the course of the argument?

As you see, a piece that interrogates a text from these angles of view will yield something between a general book report and a close reading, but one that focuses on the argumentative force of a text. For the purposes of our class, such a precis succeeds if it manages
1. to convey the basic flavor of the argument and
2. provides a good point of departure for a class discussion.

Class discussions

I found some interesting similarities between Litman's arguments and arguments concerning basic income guarantee, and I wanted to kind of locate their connective tissue. Actually, I guess I should be more specific: there were moments during past class discussions regarding basic income guarantee that could have been applied to today's arguments, so I suppose this is actually more about the particulars of our class dynamic as opposed to texts that make certain claims.

That being said, I remember that when basic income guarantee became a topic of discussion, there were a number of reactions that sounded something like this: what incentive will there be to work certain kinds of jobs which "must be done" if the fiscal backing does not exist? Isn't it too close to an idealist, utopian myth that can't function because skill=monetary incentive fueling a desire to develop certain skill=application of skill? Won't there be too great of a leveling effect that will render individualism inactive because we will somehow [based solely on our income] lose a sense of "purposeful work"? Communism? Assimilation? Lack of definable, class and social differences?

All of these assumptions or fears have a definite weight and legitimacy, and should not be immediately dismissed because they are the product of our shared contemporary experiences and make a lot of sense in THIS CONTEXT (the context being contemporary life). What developed out of that argument, however, was the notion that how we identify "work" and what constitutes the process of working and production would have to become or WOULD become radically different because if you are paid simply to exist, then the activities you do everyday can BECOME what work means {a really really really great argument for Artists, with a capital A, D.C.).

Ok, so there's that. That in and of itself isn't the connection I'm trying to make. What connects these two discussions more directly is the ideology shift. There was an almost intrinsic agreement initially that determined what constituted "work" that wasn't necessarily a vocalized claim, but I think parallels could have been made among individual philosophies of what work represented to each of us that could form a sort of general consensus of what we think of as productive labor. Keeping that in mind, it was necessary for us to reaffirm what we dictate to be work in order for something like basic income guarantee to make any amount of sense.

Similarly, I found that the discussion of the Litman piece today required an adjustment of what we believe constitutes property and how we think about the exchange of information. I think it's interesting that Litman explained the history of copyright laws in order to kind of demonstrate that what are consider common-placed notions of intellectual property haven't actually existed for all that long. In the same way that [and this is not the best example, but something relatable to critical theory and the course overall], when we speak about Nature, we need to remember the history of how Nature developed as an ideology, we need to keep in mind that WE, the contemporaries of every historical moment, are the inventors of these compartments. Therefore, we have full license to change our minds.

This is oversimplified, obviously. It's not like flicking on a switch. But it is an interesting, gradual exercise that I feel can free us of a number of unnecessary binds.

Just a thought.

I'm watching me

internet=panopticon?

well, maybe...

after getting past the wrong idea I originally had, I still cant see how the internet is parrelled to Foucault's panopticon. the thing that gets me is the freedom of activity in the participants. in the panoptic prison, the prisoners had no activity, ie- were stuck in a cell and therefore in the mechanism of the panopticon. Internet users however, have a very different experience. they are actively seeking out information to use in each persons own way. theres no coercion or intimidation(unless you bring up the recording industry suits) about viewing or creating websites as long as they confine to the law. true kiddie porn is off limits but I think it's for the best...really. other than that governments and organizations have no power (that I'm aware of) to control what content you consume. every so often I hear about how AOL or some other demon company sold customer activity lists to the CIA or FBI and I say get educated about how the net works, get a floating IP or change web providers! Or better yet lobby the government to change these invasive practices. anyway.

the internet is a decentralized network made up of many large corporate pages but far more personal sites and blogs. in the prison, it' a top down, one way, direct contact, 'oh my god I'm in a fucking prison with armed guards watching my ass' kind of place.

perhaps its something more. maybe its about ISP providers having the power to control content. if the internet is an ocean, then the providers are the boats that get everyone around. what if those boats only went to certain destinations?? destinations that those wanting to keep an eye on everyone wanted you to see and those that they did not. I do not think the latter is the case. there are many out there that have the knowledge of the behind the scenes stuff that really help keep info flowing in the face of restrictions. so log off myspace for once and check out hackaday.com or reddit.com or or or....hey! cheap DVD players on amazon..........


adam day

Tomorrow's Readings:

Just a reminder, tomorrow is a Law Day.

We're discussing Jessica Litman's Sharing and Stealing and James Boyle's Enclosing the Genome?

Those of you who have not yet co-facilitated a class discussion really need to figure out how that is going to happen. Next week we will be reading selections from the Precarity issue of fibreculture. Look it over in advance and have a sense of the pieces you might be interested in talking about in class a bit.

Your Final Exam

Here is your final exam. Choose to answer two from the following four questions. Each of your answers should be approximately 3-4 pages long. You may spend as much time as you wish on the exam and you should use your texts to help substantiate your points. Stick to the questions and be sure to finish on time. You are to submit a physical copy of your exam to me on the last scheduled meeting of the course.

(a) Summarize what you take to be the key insight in any single one of the theoretical texts we have read over the course of the term and then show how that insight illuminates your reading of “The Gentle Seduction,” “Desk Set,” or “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (choose one).

(b) Summarize what you take to be the central argument of C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man” and then propose two other texts we have read over the course of the term that reiterate key features (these can include either strengths or limitations, depending on your viewpoint) of Lewis’ argument.

(c) Compare and contrast two works in which the theme of an emerging technologically facilitated “spiritualization” or “dematerialization” is central, but in each case importantly different, in your view of the arguments the authors are making.

(d) Compare and contrast two works in which the theme of an emerging technologically facilitated “global” or “planetary” perspective is central, but in each case importantly different, in your view of the arguments the authors are making.

Next Week

Don't forget to click on the syllabus for the latest info about what we are reading and who will be facilitating discussion. If you are faciliating soon and your choice of texts isn't on the syllabus yet -- e-mail me to remind me so the information appears as soon as possible. Speaking of as soon as possible... that's when your blog-posts need to arrive for the first assignment. Kick it into gear, people.

TECBlogging

TECBlogging

Tomorrow... And Beyond!

Remember that for tomorrow you should have read and prepared to discuss C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man. Tomorrow I'll be bringing a blank syllabus on which students will be able to select presentation times for the remainder of the term, and texts from the online list that they would like to present (you can select a time without knowing yet exactly which text you will want to present -- but remember, when it comes both to times and texts, first come, first served). I am going to choose two texts for us to read and discuss next week, and I encourage students to come forward to present on at least one of them. The first text is a curious short story by Marc Stiegler called The Gentle Seduction. The second is John Perry Barlow's incredibly influential Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.

The Language of the Future

These are the lyrics to Laurie Anderson's "The Language of the Future," from United States, which I discussed a little bit before class with a couple of you. We can take this up, among other things, next Thursday, should the shape of the conversation move us that way....

The Language of the Future

Last year, I was on a twin-engine plane coming from Milwaukee to New York City. Just over La Guardia, one of the engines conked out and we started to drop straight down, flipping over and over. Then the other engine died: and we went completely out of control. New York City started getting taller and taller. A voice came over the intercom and said:

Our pilot has informed us that we are about to attempt a crash landing.
Please extinguish all cigarettes. Place your tray tables in their upright, locked position.

Your Captain says: Please do not panic.
Your Captain says: Place your head in your hands.
Captain says: Place your head on your knees.
Captain says: Put your hands on your head. Put your hands on your knees! (heh-heh)

This is your Captain.
Have you lost your dog?
We are going down.
We are all going down, together.

As it turned out, we were caught in a downdraft and rammed into a bank. It was, in short, a miracle. But afterwards I was terrified of getting onto planes. The moment I started walking down that aisle, my eyes would clamp shut and I would fall into a deep, impenetrable sleep.

(YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS ...
YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ...
HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DOG?)

Finally, I was able to remain conscious, but I always had to go up to the forward cabin and ask the stewardesses if I could sit next to them: “Hi! Uh, mind if I join you?” They were always rather irritated -- “Oh, all right (what a baby)” -- and I watched their uniforms crack as we made nervous chitchat.

Sometimes even this didn’t work, and I’d have to find one of the other passengers to talk to. You can spot these people immediately. There’s one on every flight. Someone who’s really on your wavelength.

I was on a flight from L.A. when I spotted one of them, sitting across the aisle. A girl, about fifteen. And she had this stuffed rabbit set up on her tray table and she kept arranging and rearranging the rabbit and kind of waving to it: “Hi!”
“Hi there!”
And I decided: This is the one I want to sit next to. So I sat down and we started to talk and suddenly I realized she was speaking an entirely different language. Computerese.
A kind of high-tech lingo.
Everything was circuitry, electronics, switching.
If she didn’t understand something, it just “didn’t scan.”
We talked mostly about her boyfriend. This guy was never in a bad mood. He was in a bad mode.
Modey kind of a guy.
The romance was apparently kind of rocky and she kept saying: “Man oh man you know like it’s so digital!” She just meant the relationship was on again, off again.

Always two things switching.
Current runs through bodies and then it doesn’t.
It was a language of sounds, of noise, of switching, of signals.
It was the language of the rabbit, the caribou, the penguin, the beaver.
A language of the past.
Current runs through bodies and then it doesn’t.
On again.
Off again.
Always two things switching.
One thing instantly replaces another.

It was the language of the Future.

Put your knees up to your chin.
Have you lost your dog?
Put your hands over your eyes.

Jump out of the plane.
There is no pilot.
You are not alone.

This is the language of the on-again off-again future.
And it is Digital.

And I answered the phone and I heard a voice and the voice said:
Please do not hang up.
We know who you are.
Please do not hang up.
We know what you have to say.
Please do not hang up.
We know what you want.
Please do not hang up.
We’ve got your number:
One ...
Two ...
Three ...
Four.

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

Syllabus for Critical Theory A, Spring, 2006

Critical Theory A
Subject, Object, Abject

Spring 2006

Tuesdays, 9.00-11.45
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment.

Course Description

Just what is the relationship of argument to interpretation? “Interpretation” derives from the Latin interpretatio, a term freighted with the sense not only of explication and explanation, but translation. What are the conventions that govern intelligible acts of interpretation, translation, argumentation? What are the conventions through which we constitute the proper objects of interpretation in the first place? And who are the subjects empowered to offer up interpretations that compel our attention and conviction? What happens when objects object to our interpretations and demand the standing of subjects themselves? How does the interpretation of literary texts differ from the interpretation of the law? How does it differ from a scientist’s interrogation of her environment? Or from any critical engagement with the “given” terms of the social order in which one lives? Or even from the give and take through which we struggle to understand one another in everyday conversation? These are questions with which we will begin our survey of some of the themes, problems, and conventions in the rhetoric of interpretation. Where we will have arrived by the end will of course be very much a matter open to interpretation.

Schedule of Meetings

Jan 24 Introduction
Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Jan 31 Diagnostic Essay Due, 2-3pp.
Discuss Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs”

Feb 7 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology

Feb 14 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (continued)

Feb 21 Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Feb 28 Barthes, Mythologies (continued)

Mar 7 Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

March 13-17 Spring Break

Mar 21 Paper Due, 4-5pp. due
Screen film They Live, John Carpenter, dir.
Discuss film.

Mar 28 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

Apr 4 Conclude discussion of Foucault, Discipline and Punish
Begin discussion of Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality

Apr 11 Discuss Foucault, History of Sexuality (continued)

Apr 18 Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Apr 25 Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (continued)

May 2 Carol Adams, “Preface” and “On Beastliness and a Politics of
Solidarity,” from Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense
of Animals
Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself

May 9 Paper Due, 4-5pp
Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself
Concluding Remarks.

Wendy Brown

For Thursday, I would like everybody to read the first two and then the final two short pieces of the Brown book Politics Out of History. For those who are curious, if we had stuck to the syllabus and devoted another week to the Brown I would have also assigned Chapters 4 and 5. But as it is this will give us plenty to talk about. The Chapters for Thursday, then, are "Politics Out of History," "Moralism as Anti-Politics," "Democracy Against Itself," and "Specters and Angels." Enjoy!