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I am looking for course materials. If you've taught a class in CyAn, please send me your syllabus.
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I am always looking for course materials from various courses. If you've taught a class in CyAn, please send me your syllabus.
You can contact me at caseorganic at gmail dot com.
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Please [mailto:case@cyborganthropology.com contact me] if you have a syllabus to contribute.  
  
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===Assorted Colleges and Universities===
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*SOAN 390 - [[Cyborg Anthropology: Anthropology of Science and Technology]]
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*1A.350 / SP.484J / STS.086 [[The Anthropology of Computing: Digital Cultures Spring 2009 MIT]] | [http://web.mit.edu/wgs/academics/syllabi/SP484.pdf Download PDF]
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*21A.850J / STS.484J [[The Anthropology of Cybercultures]]
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*LIS 598: [[Infomation and Contemplation: University of Washington Information School]] | [http://www.contemplativemind.org/programs/academic/syllabi/levy.pdf Download PDF]
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*ANTH 242 AA: [[The Anthropology of Cyberspace]] | University of Regina Fall 2010
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*209 Theory Seminar [[Cities and Cyborgs: Computing and the Metropolis, 1860-2010]] | UC Berkeley 2011
  
== SOAN 390 - CYBORG ANTHROPOLOGY: Anthropology of Science and Technology ==
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{{clear}}
<br />
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===MIT Open Courseware===
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[[Image:mit-open-courseware.jpg|right|300px]]
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====Science and Technology Studies====
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*STS.S28 [[Godzilla and the Bullet Train: Technology and Culture in Modern Japan]] Fall 2005
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*STS.484J [[The Anthropology of Cybercultures]] Spring 2009
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*STS.464 [[Cultural History of Technology]] Spring 2005
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*STS.462 [[Social and Political Implications of Technology]] Spring 2006
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*STS.428 [[Technology and Change in Rural America]] Fall 2004
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*STS.420J [[The Structure of Engineering Revolutions]] Fall 2001
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*STS.415J [[Nature, Environment, and Empire]] Spring 2010
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*STS.086J [[The Anthropology of Computing]] Fall 2004
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*STS.085 [[Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier]] Fall 2005
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*STS.075J [[Technology and Culture]] Fall 2006
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*STS.069 [[Technology in a Dangerous World]] Fall 2002
  
'''INSTRUCTOR: DEBORAH HEATH'''
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====Business Management====
<br />
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*15.668 [[People and Organizations]] Fall 2005
MW 6:00pm-7:30pm, Howard 203<br />
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*15.665B [[Power and Negotiation]] Fall 2002
Office: Howard 350 - Tel.: x7663, 7616; email: heath@lclark.edu<br />
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*15.316 [[Building and Leading Effective Teams]] Summer 2005
Office hours: M 1:30-2:30, W 1:30-3:30, and by appointment; via email at any time<br />
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*15.020 [[Competition in Telecommunications]] Fall 2003
(Please let me know in advance by email if you need to reschedule an appointment.)<br />
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'''This course will examine recent work in the emerging field of anthropology of science and technology.  We will take as our point of departure two tropes.'''
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====Special Topics on Technology and Humanity====
<br />
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*MAS.962 [[Autism Theory and Technology]] Spring 2006
The first is the image of the cyborg, and other hybrids produced by the merging of organism and machine, or of humans and their toolsThe classic text is Donna Haraway’s 1985 essay “A Cyborg Manifesto.”  This will lead to questions about the prosthetic devices that extend human agency, about the complex networks of association that link human and nonhuman allies, and about who is included or excluded from those networks. 
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<br />
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The second, drawing from later work by Haraway, beginning with her collection Primate Visions, from Bruno Latour’s new book Politics of Nature, is the image of nature/culture, a perspective that sees the natural and cultural dimensions as inextricably linked.  (See also my co-edited volume Genetic NatureCulture, Univ. of California Press, 2004).  This is a vision that leads us towards organismal hybrid relations between humans and other species, or humans and microbial life forms, or humans and their varied environments. 
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<br />
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Both of these trajectories instantiate a fully relational perspective that embraces complexities and resists reductionistic categorizations.  Learning to think in this manner, struggling to see what links phenomena we have learned to see as separate and contradictory, will be the central task that we undertake together in this course.  We will work to see the networks and practices that link Science and Society, Fact and Artifact, Truth and Value, Nature and Culture, (hegemonic) Self and (subaltern) Other, recognizing how binaries are constructed and sustained, and whose interests are served by reproducing those divisions.
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<br />
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We will read a great deal, with “texts” that include science fiction as well as cultural analyses of technoscientific fact, films as well as written works, and time spent with each other and with other worlds on line.
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<br />
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'''EXPECTATIONS'''
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Resources for people beginning in digital anthropology: 
*1. BE HERE.  As a seminar member, your presence is an essential ingredient.  With once-a-week meetings, it's imperative that you aim for a perfect attendance record.  Please notify me before class in the event of medical/personal emergencies.  In addition to your f2f (face-to-face) presence in class, you'll want to make regular virtual appearances on the class listserv. 
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*2. BE PREPARED.  A good seminar experience relies on everyone having carefully read (and re-read) and reflected on the week's readings in advance.  Bring the text(s), and your notes, summaries and questions to each class.  Please prepare a typed paragraph with comments and/or questions in response to the readings for each class. 
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*3. BE ENGAGED.  In person, and in writing, you will want to demonstrate your critical engagement with the readings (and their wider contexts), with each other (productively and respectfully), and with me. (Stay in touch: in class, on line, during office hours).  I am (passionately) interested in evidence of your curiosity, and promise to respond in kind.
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*4. BE ON TIME.  In class and on assignments.  Please spare me the surveillance role; I'd rather devote my energies to you and your ideas.
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'''MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS'''
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The problem with a lot of resources in this area is that they tend to go out of date. I think it is far wiser to invest time in traditional theory and a study of history. This way, one can able to apply insights no matter what kind of sociocultural change is going on. While I'm going to link to a source of living knowledge (this wiki of digital anthropology resources) I'd also like to cite a number of trdtional books that help one step outside the gaze of the everyday experience and into the gaze of understanding systems and strucutres as a whole. 
  
*Midterm, Week 8.
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One of the main benefits of the anthropological perspective (and the historical perspective) is the ability not to be surprised. Most things have occurred before. Everything is pretty much the same, it has just manifested differently. 
*Research Paper, due finals week. Approximately 20pp., typed, double-spaced, proofread.
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'''READINGS'''
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The following resources are short, but can be used to learn a bit more. Also see [[Reading List]], [[:Category:Books]]
  
Articles not found in The Cyborg Handbook will be on electronic reserve. In addition we will read the following books:
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===Books===
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*[[The Cyborg Handbook]]
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*[[All that is Solid Melts into Air]]
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*[[Liquid Modernity]]
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*[[Non-Places: An Introduction to a Theory of Supermodernity]]
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*[[The Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture]]
  
'''Books:'''
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===Websites===
<br />
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*[http://ctheory.net/ CTheory] is a really great site for keeping up on cutting edge theory.
*Kristin Adal, Brita Brenna, and Ingunn Moser, Eds.  Technoscience: The Politics of Intervention. Oslo: Unipub, 2007
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*Tom Boellstorf, Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008
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===Multimedia===
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http://escapepod.org/
  
*Chris Hables Gray, Heidi Figuroa-Sarriera, Steven Mentor, Eds. [[The Cyborg Handbook]]. New York and London: Routledge, 1996.  
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If traditional anthropologists look to the a culture's literature or mythology in order to understand how they function, a cyborg anthropologist must look at a civilization's science fiction in order to understand how they might function. EscapePod is a podcast that breaks some of the best new science fiction stories out there. It's a constant source of inspiration thinking differently and envisioning people in new systems.  
  
*Donna Haraway, Thyrza and Nichols Goodeve, How Like a Leaf: An Interview with Donna Haraway.  New York and London: Routledge, 1999.
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__NOTOC__
 
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*Bruno Latour, Science in Action.  Boston, MA: Harvard, 1987 [Excerpts, on reserve]
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*Marge Piercy, He, She and It.  New York: Fawcett, 1993. 
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*Peter Redfield, Space in the Tropics.  Berkeley: University of California, 2000
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We will also view the following films, for which you’ll take notes, and be prepared to discuss their relevance to the readings and broader topics of discussion in the course:
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'''Films:'''
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<br />
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*Bedtime for Bonzo.  Director: Frederick de Cordova.  1951.  (83 min.)
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*Bladerunner.  Director: Ridley Scott.  1999 (Original, 1982) (117 min.)
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*Donna Haraway Reads the National Geographics of Primates.  New York, NY: Paper Tiger Television, 1987 (30 min.)
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*GATTACA.  1997 (101 min.)
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'''Articles:'''
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<br />
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*Haraway, Donna. 1985/1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Pp. 149-182 in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.
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*Deborah Heath, 1998a  “Bodies, Antibodies and Modest Interventions: Works of Art in the Age of Cyborgian Reproduction.”  In Gary Downey and Joseph Dumit, eds.  Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in the Borderlands of Technoscience.  Santa Fe NM: School of American Research. 
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'''SCHEDULE'''
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<br />
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*Week 1  9/3  Introductions
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*Week 2  9/8  Marge Piercy, He, She, and It (Ch. 1-12); Chris Gray, et al., Eds. The Cyborg Handbook, Ch. 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 (Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, originators of the term “cyborg”).  An overview of the Golem narrative, with additional links: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/golem.html
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9/10 He, She, and It (Ch. 13-25); Chris Gray, ed. The Cyborg Handbook, Forward by Donna Haraway
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*Week 3  9/15  Marge Piercy, He, She, and It (Ch. 26-38); Donna Haraway and T. N. Goodeve How Like a Leaf, Ch. 1-3
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9/17  He, She, and It (Ch. 39-49)
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*Week 4  9/22  Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto;" Chris Gray, ed. The Cyborg Handbook, Ch. 5.1
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9/24  Donna Haraway and T. N. Goodeve How Like a Leaf, Ch. 4-5, Coda; Chris Gray, ed. The Cyborg Handbook, Ch. 5.3, 5.4 (Cyborg Anthropology)
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*Week 5  9/ 29  Kristin Asdal, et al., Eds., Technoscience: The Politics of Intervention, “The Politics of Intervention: A History of STS”
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10/1  Susan Leigh Star, “Power, Technology, and the Phenomenology of Conventions: On Being Allergic to Onions”, and Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges” in Asdal, et al., Eds.
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*Week 6  10/6  Deborah Heath, “Bodies, Antibodies and Modest Interventions”, in Asdal, et al., Eds., and Michael Flower & Deborah Heath, “Microanatomopolitics” [on reserve]
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10/8  Independent study session
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*Week 7  10/13 Bruno Latour, Science in Action, [Ch. 1-2, Rules of Method, Principles. On reserve]; Bruno Latour, “To Modernize or Ecologize?” and Michel Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay,” in Asdal, et al., Eds.
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10/15 De Laet and Mol, “The Zimbabwe Bush Pump,” and Ingunn Moser and John Law, “Good Passages, Bad Passages,” in Asdal, et al., Eds.
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*Week 8  10/20  Midterm presentations
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10/22  Midterm presentations
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*Week 9  10/27 Tom Boellstorf, Coming of Age in Second Life, Ch. 1-3
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10/29  Boellstorf, Ch. 4-6
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*Week 10  11/3  Boellstorf, Ch. 7-9
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11/5  Film: GATTACA
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*Week 11  11/10  Peter Redfield, Space in the Tropics, Ch. 1-3
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11/12  Redfield, Ch. 4-6
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*Week 12  11/17  Redfield, Ch. 7-9
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11/19  Heather Horst, “The blessings and burdens of communication: cell phones in Jamaican transnational social fields,” Global Networks 6(2):143-159 [on reserve]
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*Week 13  11/24  Film: Bedtime for Bonzo.  Donna Haraway, Primate Visions, Ch. 7, “Apes in Eden, Apes in Space” [on reserve] 11/26  Independent study session
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*Week 14  12/1  Film: Donna Haraway Reads the National Geographics of Primates.  Donna Haraway, Primate Visions, Ch. 3, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy”
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12/3  Hugh Gusterson, “Short Circuit: Watching Television with a Nuclear Weapons Scientist,” and Ken Robins and Les Levidow, “Socializing the Cyborg Self” in Chris Gray, et al., Eds. The Cyborg Handbook.
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*Week 15  12/8 Teaching Evaluations.  Sandy Stone, “Split Subjects, Not Atoms; or, How I Fell in Love With My Prosthesis,” and Chela Sandoval, “New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed,” in Chris Gray, et al., Eds. The Cyborg Handbook.
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12/10 LAST DAY OF CLASS. Presentations
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*'''Final Exam Period:  Monday, 12/15, 6-9pm  Presentations'''
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<br />
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==== Bureaucratic Postscript ====
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<br />
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'''Academic Integrity:'''  I will assume that you have read, understood, and upheld Lewis & Clark’s Academic Integrity Policy (www.lclark.edu/~stlife) in all our work for this course.  Among other things, the policy prohibits all forms of plagiarism and cheating in your coursework.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR READING THIS POLICY.  A good source of information about avoiding plagiarism is http://www.lclark.edu/~writing/need%20to%20cite/need_text.htm
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<br /><br />
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'''Anthropology Citation Style:'''  Careful, correct citation practices help boost your immunity to accidental plagiarism.  The key principle is that if someone else is the source or inspiration for what you write, they should receive credit.  Each discipline handles the details of citation differently.  The LC Writing Center website summarizes the standard form used in anthropology: <http://lclark.edu/~writing/citing/cite.htm>.  Click on “Style for Anthropology.”  (For more details, see the website of the American Anthropological Association: http://www.aaanet.org/publications/guidelines.cfm, scrolling down to the heading "Text Citations and References Cited.") 
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<br /><br />
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'''Yes, type it, and PROOFREAD, please!'''  Formal work will be typed with normal margins, double-spaced (no, not 1.5), and PROOFREAD.  Please strive to hand in clean work so that I can focus on your ideas.  Make me happy by avoiding these grammatical faux pas: run-on sentences (NO comma splices!), incorrect use of “it’s”, rampant spelling errors (use spell check or a friendly human editor).
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<br /><br />
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'''Key elements of successful writing:'''  See the LC Writing Center, on-line or on site, for a treasure trove of writing tips.  Let me know what kind of feedback will help you most.  I will look for the following in evaluating formal writing:
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*1. Creativity in selecting a topic or approach
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*2. Anthropological focus, relevance to course material
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*3. Coherence and clarity
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*4. Convincing use of appropriate examples or evidence
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*5. Lively use of language
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*6. Good flow in the progression of ideas
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*7. Editing to eliminate surface errors: grammar, syntax, punctuation
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<br />
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*Accommodating Learning Differences:  I am most willing to learn from you how you learn best, and to help you strategize to do your best work.  If you have a diagnosed learning difference, or wonder whether you might, contact Dale Holloway in Student Support Services, x7175. She will help determine the accommodations you need, and will notify your instructors.
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----
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== 21A.350 / SP.484J / STS.086 The Anthropology of Computing: Digital Cultures Spring 2009 MIT ==
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[http://web.mit.edu/wgs/academics/syllabi/SP484.pdf Download in .PDF]
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*Time: Tues & Thurs 2:30-4:00
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*Location: 16-220
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*Class website: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/21A/sp09/21A.350J/
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*Lecturer: Lucy Suchman (Visiting Professor)
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*Office hours: Wed 2-3:30 or by appointment
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*Contact info: tel (617) 253-3065
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In this course we will examine various forms of digitally-based artifacts and associated practices anthropologically, in order to understand the social orders and cultural assumptions that sustain them. The course readings include some defining texts, which we’ll read along with cultural analyses of computing history and of various contemporary configurations of persons and machines. We’ll explore the history of automata, automation and capitalist manufacturing, cybernetics, WWII and the Cold War; artificial intelligence and robotics; cyborgs, technobodies and virtual sociality; digital identities; geeks, gamers and hactivism. Throughout the course we’ll be attentive to issues of gender, race and other marks of sameness and difference as they operate among humans, and between humans and machines.
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'''Teaching approach
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'''The course will be conducted as a seminar – with introductory lectures, excerpts from films or other media representations relevant to the week’s topic, class discussions of readings, and student presentations. In general Tuesdays will be organized around a lecture and discussion, Thursdays around readings. Each Thursday two students will be asked to lead the discussion of the week’s readings. Active participation in discussions, based on reading and/or experience is expected. Be sure to bring marked-up copies of required readings to Thursday classes.
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Each week we’ll discuss the required readings intensively and in relation to each other. The emphasis here is on careful reading rather than quantity; that is, the assignments are not extensive in terms of pages so that you have time to read closely and think about what you’re reading. There are also additional sources provided for each week that you can draw on for your Final Projects (see Assignments).
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1
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'''On-line Facilities:'''
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See the class website for required readings and other course materials, as well as updates from the instructor throughout the term.
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Requirements:
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Grades will be based on:
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Short analytic essay (15%) Fieldnotes (20%) Final project (45%) Class participation and evidence of preparation (20%) See Assignments document for further details.
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=== Texts: ===
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Required readings will be made available on the class Stellar site, however these are books that we’ll be drawing from that would make good additions to your library if you’re interested in these topics. Buying or borrowing the books will also provide you with the full list of readings that the authors reference. (Texts marked with an asterisk will be included in required readings.)
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*Boellstorff, Tom (2008) Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Edwards, Paul (1996) The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War
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America. Cambridge: MIT Press. Featherstone, Mike and Burrows, Roger (1995) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures
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of Technological Embodiment. London: Sage. (alternative to downloading journal papers) Helmreich, Stefan (2000) Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World.
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paperback edition with a new preface. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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*Kelty, Christopher (2008) Two Bits: The cultural significance of free software. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
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*Kember, Sarah (2003) Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life. London & New York: Routledge. Mackenzie, Donald A. and Wajcman, Judy (1999) The social shaping of technology.
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Buckingham ; Philadelphia, Pa.: Open University Press.
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Riskin, Jessica (2007) Genesis Redux: Essays in the history and philosophy of artificial life. Chicago: University of Chicago.
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Suchman, Lucy (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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*Taylor, T.L. (2006) Play Between Worlds: Exploring online gaming culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Turkle, Sherry (2005) The Second Self: Computers and the human spirit (20th anniversary edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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*Wiener, Norbert ([1948]1985) Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, second edition. Cambridge: MIT Press
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2
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=== Schedule: ===
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Week 1, Tues Feb 3 Course Introduction
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In this first meeting I’ll offer an overview of the course and we’ll discuss expectations (both mine and yours) for the work that you’ll be asked to do and what you hope to learn. We’ll clarify how theory and methods from anthropology and science and technology studies will inform our discussions, as well as the sense of ‘digital cultures’ as a frame for the range of topics to be covered. We’ll begin to explore the anthropological terrain of the course with a viewing of the documentary Gamer Revolution.
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No readings
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Film: Gamer Revolution (2007), Part 1 (45 mins.), Red Apple Entertainment.
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Thurs, Feb 5
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Required reading
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Taylor, T.L. (2006) Play Between Worlds: Exploring online gaming culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Introduction pp. 1-19.
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Preparation Come to class prepared to discuss some aspect of digital cultures that interests you, illustrated with an example drawn from film, fiction, or nonfiction media (e.g. relevant blogs, news reports, youtube videos, films, games, social networking sites). You might use the topics of the class syllabus for inspiration, but other topics not anticipated here are also welcome. We’ll use our discussion of the examples you bring to help shape the course direction and emphases.
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Discussion facilitation schedule finalized
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Week 2, Tues Feb 10, Thurs Feb 12 Automata histories Required readings
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Riskin, Jessica (2003) The Defecating Duck, Or, The Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life. Critical Inquiry 20: 599-633.
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Brooks, Rodney (2002) Flesh and machines: how robots will change us. New York: Pantheon Books, chpt 7 pp. 148-171.
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Additional sources
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Channell, David (1991) The Vital Machine. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morus, Iwan Rhys (2002) Bodies/Machines. Oxford: Berg. Riskin, Jessica (2003) Eighteenth Century Wetware. Representations 83: 97-125.
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3
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Riskin, Jessica (2007) Genesis Redux: Essays in the history and philosophy of artificial life. Chicago: University of Chicago.
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Standage, Tom (2002) The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth Century Chess- Playing Machine. New York.
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Wood, Gaby (2002) Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life. London: Faber and Faber.
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Week 3, [No class Feb 17] Thurs Feb 19 Automation Required readings
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Cockburn, Cynthia (1981) The Material of Male Power. Feminist Review 9: 41-58.. Freeman, Carla (1993) Designing Women: Corporate Discipline and Barbados's Off-Shore Pink-
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Collar Sector. Cultural Anthropology 8. Additional sources
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Cowan, Ruth Schwartz (1999) The industrial revolution in the home. In D. Mackenzie & J. Wajcman (eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd Edition. pp. 281-300.
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Forty, Adrian (1986), Objects of desire: design and society, 1750-1980, London: Thames & Hudson. Chapter 9.
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Foucault, Michel (1979) Discipline & Punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage (see especially ‘Docile Bodies’, pp. 135-169).
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Freeman, Carla (2000) High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
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Garson, Barbara (1988) The Electronic Sweatshop. New York: Simon and Schuster.
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Marx, Karl (1876/1999) The Machine versus the Worker. In Mackenzie, Donald A. and Wajcman, Judy (1999) The social shaping of technology, 2nd Edition. Buckingham; Philadelphia, Pa.: Open University Press, pp. 156-7.
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Noble, David (1999) Social choice in machine design: the case of automatically controlled machine tools. In D. Mackenzie & J. Wajcman (eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd Edition. pp. 161-176.
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Schaffer, Simon (1994) Babbage’s Intelligence: Calculating Engines and the Factory System. Critical Inquiry 21(1):203-227.
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Thomas, Robert J. (1994/1999) What machines can't do: politics and technology in the industrial enterprise. Berkeley: University of California Press. Excerpt in In D. Mackenzie & J. Wajcman (eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd Edition. pp. 281-300, pp. 199-221.
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Zuboff, Shoshana (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine: The future of work and power. New York: Basic Books.
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Film: excerpts from Modern Times
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4
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Week 4, Tues Feb 24, Thurs Feb26 Social histories: the origins of the ‘cyber’ Required readings
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Tomas, David (1995) Feedback and Cybernetics: Reimaging the body in the age of the cyborg. Body and Society 1: 21-43.
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Wiener, Norbert ([1948]1985) Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, second edition. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 1-29, 155-165.
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Additional sources
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Bateson, Gregory (1972) Cybernetic Explanation. In Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 405-416.
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Bowker, Geoffrey (1993) How to be Universal: Some cybernetic strategies, 1943-1970. Social Studies of Science 23: 107-127.
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Bush, Vannevar (1945) As We May Think. The Atlantic Monthly176(1):101-108. Online:
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www.csi.uottawa.ca/~dduchier/misc/vbush/awmt.html
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Edwards, Paul (1996) The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge: MIT Press.
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Eglash, Ron (2000) Cultural Cybernetics: the Mutual Construction of People and Machines http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/cyb/cultcyb.dir/cultcyb.htm
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Hayles, N. Katherine (1999) Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Wiener and Cybernetic Anxiety. From How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 84-112. http://www.english.ucla.edu/faculty/hayles/Wiener.htm
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Orr, Jackie (2006) Panic Diaries: A geneaology of panic disorder. Durham: Duke University Press (see especially Chapter 3, pp. 79-164).
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Plant, Sadie (1995) The Future Looms: Weaving women and cybernetics. Body and Society 1: 45-64.
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Rosenblueth, Arturo, Wiener, Norbert and Bigelow, Julian (1943) Behavior, Purpose and Teleology. Philosophy of Science 10: 18-24.
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film excerpt: War Games Week 5, Tues Mar 3 [No class Mar 5] Cybergeographies, cyberpolitics and postcolonial
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computing
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Required readings
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Gajjala, Radhika (2002) An Interrupted Postcolonial/Feminist Cyberethnography: Complicity and Resistance in the “Cyberfield”. Feminist Media Studies 2: 177-193.
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Helmreich, Stefan (1999) Digitizing ‘‘development’’: Balinese water temples, complexity, and the politics of simulation. Critique of Anthropology 19: 249-266.
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5
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Additional sources:
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Adams, Paul C. and Warf, Barney (1997) Introduction: Cyberspace and Geographical Space. Geographical Review 87: 139-145.
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Bleecker, Julian (1995) Urban Crisis: Past, Present and Virtual. Socialist Review 24: 189-221.
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Chan, Anita. 2003. Coding Free Software, Coding Free States: Free Software Legislation and the Politics of Code in Peru. Anthropological Quarterly 77(3): 531-545. Online: muse.jhu.edu/journals/anthropological_quarterly/toc/anq77.3.html
+
Dodge, Martin and Kitchin, Rob (2004) Mapping Cyberspace. London and New York: Routledge [electronic resource]
+
Eglash, Ron and Bleeker, Julian (2001) The Race for Cyberspace: Information technology in the Black diaspora. Science as Culture 10 (3): 353-374.
+
Eglash, Ron (2000) When Terabyte Makes Right: The Changing Role of Computing Power in the Social Authority of Simulations. http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/cyb/power.dir/power.htm
+
Escobar, Arturo (1994) Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture. Current Anthropology 35.
+
Fischer, Michael (1999) Worlding Cyberspace: Toward a critical ethnography in time, space, and theory. In G. Marcus (ed.), Critical Anthropology Now pp. 245-304. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.
+
Gajjala, Radhika and Annapurna Mamidipudi (1999) Cyberfeminism, Technology and International ‘Development.’ Gender and Development 7 (2): 8–16.
+
Kumar, Amitava (2001) Temporary Access: The Indian H-1B Worker in the United States. In Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. Alondra Nelson and Thuy Linh N. Tu with Alicia Headlam Hines, eds. New York: NYU Press, 76-87.
+
Mosco, Vincent (2005) The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power and Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Sundaram, Ravi (2001) Recycling Modernity: Pirate Electronic Cultures in India. Online: www.sarai.net/journal/reader1.html
+
6
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Week 6, Tues Mar10, Thur Mar12 Robots, agents and humanlike machines
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Required readings
+
Turing, Alan (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 59 (236):433-460.
+
Breazeal, Cynthia (2005) Socially Intelligent Robots. Interactions 12: 19-22.
+
Chasin, Alexandra (1995) Class and its Close Relations: Identities among women, servants, and machines. In J. Halberstram & I. Livingston (eds.), Posthuman Bodies pp. 73-96. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
+
Additional sources
+
Adam, Alison. 1998. Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine. New York: Routledge.
+
Agre, Philip (1997) Computation and Human Experience. New York: Cambridge University Press.
+
Brooks, Rodney (1990) Elephants Don't Play Chess. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 6: 3-15. Brooks, Rodney (2002) Flesh and machines: how robots will change us. New York: Pantheon
+
Books. Button, Graham, Coulter, Jeff, Lee, John R. and Sharrock, Wes (1995) Computers, Minds and
+
Conduct. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. Collins, H. M. (1990) Artificial Experts: Social Knowledge and Intelligent Machines.
+
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Dreyfus, Hubert. (1992) What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
+
Forsythe, Diana, and David J. Hess (2001) Studying those who study us: an anthropologist in the world of artificial intelligence, Writing science. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
+
Halberstam, Judith (1991) Automating Gender: Postmodern feminism in the age of the intelligent machines. Feminist Studies 17: 439-60.
+
Powers, Richard (1996) Galatea 2.2. New York: Harper Perennial. Suchman, Lucy (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
+
University Press, chapters 12 and 13.
+
Suchman, Lucy (2007) Feminist STS and the Sciences of the Artificial. In E. Hackett, O. Amsterdamska, M. Lynch & J. Wajcman (eds.), The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Third Edition pp. 139-163. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Film excerpt: A.I.
+
7
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Week 7, Tues Mar 17, Thurs Mar19 Bioinformatics and artificial life Required readings
+
Helmreich, Stefan (2001) After Culture: Reflections on the apparition of anthropology in artificial life, a science of simulation. Cultural Anthropology 16: 612-627.
+
Kember, Sarah (2003) Artificial Life. Chpt. 3 in Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life. London & New York: Routledge, pp. 53-82.
+
Additional sources
+
Doyle, Richard (1997) On Beyond Living: Rhetorical transformations of the Life Sciences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
+
Franklin, Sarah (2000) Life Itself: Global nature and the genetic imaginary. In Global Nature, Global Culture, edited by S. Franklin, C. Lury and J. Stacey. London: Sage.
+
Fujimura, Joan (2005) Postgenomic Futures: Translations Across the Machine-Nature Border in Systems Biology. New Genetics & Society 24: 195-225.
+
Hayles, N. Katherine (1996) Narratives of Artificial Life. In Future Natural: Nature, science, culture. G. Roberston et al (eds.) London: Routledge, pp. 146-164.
+
Helmreich, Stefan (2000) Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World. updated edition with a new preface. Berkeley: University of California Press.
+
Helmreich, Stefan (2007) "Life is a Verb": Inflections of Artificial Life in Cultural Context. Artificial Life 13: 189-201.
+
Thacker, Eugene (2004) Biocomputing: Is the Genome a Computer? In Biomedia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 87-114.
+
Tues Mar 24, Thurs Mar26 Spring Break Week 8, Tues Mar 31, Thurs April 2 Virtual identities and Second Lives
+
Required readings
+
Boellstorff, Tom (2008) Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Chpt 1, pp. 3-31; Chpt 4, pp. 89-117.
+
Taylor, T.L. (2006) Play Between Worlds: Exploring online gaming culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, chapter 4, pp. 93-124.
+
Supplementary readings:
+
Abbate, Janet (1999) Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bell, David (2001) Identities in Cyberculture. In An Introduction to Cybercultures. London and
+
New York: Routledge, pp. 113-136. Cherny, Lynn and Reba Wise, Elizabeth (eds.) (1996) Wired Women: Gender and New Realities
+
in Cyberspace, Seal Press. 8
+
Dibbell, Julian (1998) A Rape in Cyberspace (Or TINYSOCIETY, and How to Make One). Online: www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html or http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-10- 18/specials/a-rape-in-cyberspace/
+
Harcourt, Wendy (ed.) (1999) Women@Internet: Creating new cultures in cyberspace. London: Zed Press.
+
Heim, Michael (1995) The Design of Virtual Reality. Body and Society 1: 65-77. Hine, Christine (2000) The Virtual Objects of Ethnography. Chapter 3 in Virtual Ethnography.
+
London: Sage.
+
Jones, Steven (ed.) (1997) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage.
+
Kolko, Beth, Rodman, Gilbert and Nakamura, Lisa (1999) Race in Cyberspace. New York and London: Routledge.
+
Mikula, Maja (2003) Virtual Landscapes of Memory. Information, Communication & Society Vol 6(2), pp. 169 – 186.
+
Munt, Sally (ed.) (2001) Technoscapes: Inside the new media. London & New York: Continuum.
+
Nakamura, Lisa. 2002. Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity and identity on the Internet. New York & London: Routledge.
+
Nelson, Alondra and Tu, Thuy Linh N., and Hines, Alicia (eds.) (2001) Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. New York: New York University Press.
+
O'Riordan, Kate and Phillips, David (eds.) (2007) Queer Online: Media Technology & Sexuality. New York: Peter Lang.
+
Phillips, David (2002) Negotiating the Digital Closet: Online pseudonymity and the politics of sexual identity. Information, Communication & Society 5 (3):406-424
+
Shields, Rob (ed.) (1996) Cultures of Internet: Real Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies London: Sage.
+
Slater, Don (2002) Social Relationships and Identity, Online and Offline. In Lievrouw, Leah and Sonia Livingstone (Eds.) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. London: Sage, pp. 533-546
+
Slater, Don (2002) Making Things Real: Ethics and order on the Internet. Theory, Culture & Society 19: 227-245.
+
Smith, Mark and Kollock, Peter (eds.) (1999) Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge.
+
Stone, Allucquere Rosanne (1991) Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?: Boundary stories about virtual cultures. In Benedikt, M. (ed.) Cyberspace: First Steps Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 84-118.
+
Taylor, T. L. (2006) Does WoW Change Everything?: How a PvP Server, Multinational Playerbase, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause, Games & Culture Vol. 1(4), pp. 1-20.
+
Turkle, Sherry (1995) Life on the Screen. New York: Simon and Schuster. 9
+
Turkle, Sherry (2005) The Second Self: Computers and the human spirit (20th anniversary edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Webb, Stephen (2001) Avatarculture: Narrative, power and identity in virtual world environments. Information, Communication & Society. Vol. 4(4), pp. 560 - 594
+
White, Michele (1999) Visual Pleasure in Textual Places: Gazing in multi-user object-oriented worlds. Information, Communication & Society. Vol 2(4), pp. 496 – 520
+
Wilson, Samuel and Peterson, Leighton (2002) The Anthropology of Online Communities. Annual Reviews of Anthropology 31.
+
Week 9, Tues April 7, Thurs April 9 Cyborgs and technobodies
+
Required readings
+
Sobchack, Vivian (1995) Beating the Meat/Surviving the Text, or How to Get Out of this Century Alive. Body and Society 1: 205-214.
+
C. L. Moore (1944) No Woman Born. In Scotia, Thomas and Zebrowski, George (1975) Human-Machines: An anthology of stories about cyborgs. New York: Vintage, pp. 63-118.
+
Supplementary readings:
+
Allison, Anne (2001) Cyborg Violence: Bursting borders and bodies with queer machines. Cultural Anthropology 16: 237-265.
+
Balsamo, Anne (1996) Technologies of the gendered body: reading cyborg women. Durham: Duke University Press.
+
Clines, Manfred and Nathan Kline (1960) Cyborgs and Space. Astronautics, September. Reprinted in Gray, 1995.
+
Davis-Floyd, Robbie and Joseph Dumit (eds) (1998) Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots. Routledge: New York and London.
+
Downey, Gary, Dumit, Joe and Williams, Sarah (1995) Cyborg Anthropology. Cultural Anthropology 10: 264-269.
+
Featherstone, Mike and Burrows, Roger (1995) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment. London: Sage.
+
Graham, Elaine (1999) Cyborgs or Goddesses? Becoming divine in a cyberfeminist age. Information, Communication & Society. Vol. 2(4), pp. 419 - 438
+
Gray, Chris Hables (ed.) (1995) The Cyborg Handbook London and New York Routledge. Haraway, Donna (1991) A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism
+
in the Late Twentieth Century. Chapter 8 in Simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention
+
of nature. New York: Routledge. (Originally published in the Socialist Review (1985) 80: 65-108)
+
10
+
Hayles, N. Katherine (1999) The Materiality of Informatics. Chapter 8 in How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
+
Ihde, Don (2001) Bodies in Technology. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Jain, Sarah (1999) The Prosthetic Imagination: Enabling and Disabling the Prosthesis Trope.
+
Science, Technology and Human Values 24: 31-54. Kirkup, Gill (2000) The gendered cyborg: a reader. London & New York: Routledge in
+
association with the Open University. Kurzman, Steven (2001) Presence and Prosthesis: A response to Nelson and Wright. Cultural
+
Anthropology 16: 374-387. Lykke, Nina and Braidotti, Rosi (eds.) (1996) Between Monsters, Goddesses and Cyborgs.
+
London and New Jersey: Zed Books. Michael, Mike (2000) These Boot are Made for Walking: Mundane technology, the body, and
+
human-environment relations. Body and Society 6: 107-126. Nelson, Diane (2001) Phantom Limbs and Invisible Hands: Bodies, prosthetics and late capitalist
+
identifications. Cultural Anthropology 16: 303-313.
+
Piercy, Marge (1993) He, She and It. New York: Faucett.
+
Stone, Allucquère Rosanne (1995) The war of desire and technology at the close of the mechanical age. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
+
Sundén, Jenny (2001) What Happened to Difference in Cyberspace? The (Re)turn of the She- Cyborg. Feminist Media Studies Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 215-232.
+
Wright, Melissa (2001) Desire and the Prosthetics of Supervision: A Case of Maquiladora Flexibility. Cultural Anthropology 16: 354-373.
+
Week 10, Tues April 14, Thurs April 16 Ubiquitous, mobile and ambient Computing Required readings
+
Bull, Michael (2001) The World According to Sound: Investigating the world of Walkman users. New Media & Society 3: 179-197.
+
Viseu, Ana (2003) Simulation and augmentation: Issues of wearable computers. Ethics and Information Technology 5: 17-26.
+
Additional sources
+
Barfield, Woodrow and Caudell, Thomas (2000) Fundamentals of wearable computers and augumented reality. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
+
Brown, B., Green, N. and Harper, R. (2002) Wireless world: social and interactional aspects of the mobile age. London: Springer-verlag.
+
Bull, Michael (2001) The World According to Sound: Investigating the world of Walkman users. New Media & Society 3: 179-197.
+
11
+
Green, Nicola (2002) On the Move: Technology, mobility, and the mediation of social time and space. The Information Society 18 (4): 281-292.
+
Humphreys, Lee (2005) Cellphones in public: social interactions in a wireless era. New Media & Society Vol 7, Issue 6: 810-833.
+
Ito, Mimi, Okabe, Daisuke and Matsuda, Misa (2005) Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile phones in Japanese life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Mann, Steve and Niedzviecki, Hal (2001) Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer: Doubleday Canada.
+
Sheller, Mimi and Urry, John (2003) Mobile Transformations of ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ Life. Theory, Culture & Society. Vol 20 (3), pp. 107-125.
+
See also the journals Personal and Ubiquitous Computing and Pervasive and Mobile Computing Week 11, Thurs April 23 Digital identity integrity (Guest lecture Andrew Clement)
+
[NOTE: no class Tues April 21]
+
No Readings: Prep for project presentations
+
Additional sources
+
Week 12, Tues April 28, Thurs April 30 Project presentations Week 13, Tues May 5, Thurs May 7 Computing and social movements/ Geeks and hactivists
+
Required readings
+
Ross, Andrew (1990) Hacking Away at the Counterculture. In C. Penley & A. Ross (eds.), Technoculture pp. 107-134. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
+
Kelty, Christopher (2008) Two Bits: The cultural significance of free software. Durham and London: Duke University Press, Introduction pp. 1-23; Chapter 2 pp. 64-94
+
Supplementary readings:
+
Atton, Chris (2004) An Alternative Internet: Radical Media, Politics and Creativity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
+
Callon, Michel (1999) The Role of Lay People in the Production and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge. Science, Technology & Society 4(1): 81-94.
+
Coleman, Gabriella (2004) The political agnosticism of Free and Open Source Software and the inadvertent politics of contrast. Anthropological Quarterly 77: 507-519.
+
Hess, David, Breyman, Steve, Campbell, Nancy, and Martin, Brian (2007) Science, Technology, and Social Movements. In Hackett et al (Eds.) Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Third Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 473-98.
+
Kahn, R. and Kellner, D. (2005). Oppositional politics and the Internet: A critical/reconstructive approach. Cultural Politics, 1(1), 75-100.
+
12
+
Meikle, Graham (2002) Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. New York and London: Routledge
+
Pfaffenberger, Brian (1989) The social meaning of the personal computer: or, why the personal computer revolution was no revolution. Anthropological Quarterly 61: 39-47.
+
Schleiner, Anne-Marie (1999) Parasitic Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art. Online:
+
www.opensorcery.net/patch.html
+
Turkle, Sherry (2005) Hackers : loving the machine for itself. In The Second Self : Computers and the human spirit. 20th anniversary ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
+
Turner, Fred (2007) From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
+
Ullman, Ellen (1996) Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its discontents. San Francisco: City Lights.
+
Week 14, Tues May 12, Thurs May 14 Sociomaterial re(con)figurations
+
Required readings
+
Schull, Natasha (2005) Digital gambling: The coincidence of desire and design. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 597: 65-81.
+
Suchman, Lucy (2007) Reconfigurations. Chapters 14-15 in Human-Machine Reconfigurations. New York: Cambridge, pp. 259-286.
+
Additional sources: Barad, Karen (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of
+
Matter and Meaning. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Barad, Karen (2003) Posthumanist Performativity: Toward and understanding of how matter
+
comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28: 801-831. Berg, Marc and Annemarie Mol (eds.) (1998) Differences in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke
+
University Press.
+
Castañeda, Claudia (2001) Robotic skin: The future of touch? In Thinking Through the Skin, edited by S. Ahmed and J. Stacey. London: Routledge.
+
Franklin, Sarah (2003) Re-Thinking Nature-Culture. Anthropological Theory 3 (1):65-85.
+
Haraway, Donna (1997) Modest _Witness @Second_Millenium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouseTM: Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge
+
Latour, Bruno (1999) Pandora’s Hope. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Law, John, and Annemarie Mol (2002) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices.
+
Durham and London: Duke. Myers, Natasha (2008) Molecular Embodiments and the Body-work of Modeling in Protein
+
Crystallography. Social Studies of Science.
+
13
+

Latest revision as of 22:21, 16 September 2012

I am always looking for course materials from various courses. If you've taught a class in CyAn, please send me your syllabus. Please contact me if you have a syllabus to contribute.

Assorted Colleges and Universities

MIT Open Courseware

Mit-open-courseware.jpg

Science and Technology Studies

Business Management

Special Topics on Technology and Humanity

Resources for people beginning in digital anthropology: 

The problem with a lot of resources in this area is that they tend to go out of date. I think it is far wiser to invest time in traditional theory and a study of history. This way, one can able to apply insights no matter what kind of sociocultural change is going on. While I'm going to link to a source of living knowledge (this wiki of digital anthropology resources) I'd also like to cite a number of trdtional books that help one step outside the gaze of the everyday experience and into the gaze of understanding systems and strucutres as a whole. 

One of the main benefits of the anthropological perspective (and the historical perspective) is the ability not to be surprised. Most things have occurred before. Everything is pretty much the same, it has just manifested differently. 

The following resources are short, but can be used to learn a bit more. Also see Reading List, Category:Books

Books

Websites

  • CTheory is a really great site for keeping up on cutting edge theory.

Multimedia

http://escapepod.org/

If traditional anthropologists look to the a culture's literature or mythology in order to understand how they function, a cyborg anthropologist must look at a civilization's science fiction in order to understand how they might function. EscapePod is a podcast that breaks some of the best new science fiction stories out there. It's a constant source of inspiration thinking differently and envisioning people in new systems.