FYS 76 Social Difference and the Politics of Technology
"Technology" is often thought of as being neutral and at its best providing solutions to problems without by human bias. Despite this, contemporary developments in predictive policing and algorithmic racism in the United States, to give only two prominent examples, suggest that this is not the case. In "Social Difference and the Politics of Technology" we will discuss contemporary issues like AI, automation, and environmental technologies, and a longer history of technology dating to plantation slavery and European colonialism. The course will ask students to think about the ways that technological development has never been neutral and has always been connected to histories of race, gender, sexuality, and hierarchical conceptions of what it means to be human, as well as economics and labor, and ecological issues. In doing so we will look at a wide array of historical documents, theoretical texts, art works, movies, and literature to examine these histories and to imagine worlds otherwise to them. We will also reflect on how we can use an array of sources to develop research projects that ethically engage with technological change on an increasingly unequal and unstable planet.