Discourse on Computing

This course explores the centrality of technology to processes of political transformation, starting from the tension between discourses of liberation and domination. We will study the interplay of computing with present struggles in the privatization of education, intellectual property, militarization, mass surveillance, labor, gender, sexuality, race, coloniality/decoloniality, and transnational activism. Questions to be addressed include: how do financial, legal, and algorithmic, and other domains of control shape global flows of information? How do old concepts in social theory (e.g., the ‘public sphere’) translate to the digital context? How can we propose technological interventions without reproducing naïve solutionism or false universalism?

This is a student-initiated group study course (DE-Cal). Please contact the student coordinator(s) for specific questions.

Must be taken on a passed/not passed basis. Students who previously completed The Politics of Digital Piracy (Info 98/Info 198) will receive no credit for Discourse on Computing.