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GS/POLS 6083
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Class Time: T 19:00-22:00 |
Class Location: TEL 0013 |
Professor: Shannon Bell |
Office Location: S 634 Ross |
E-mail: shanbell@yorku.ca |
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Telephone (w) 416 2100 ext. 22552 |
Office Hours: |
Course Website: https://moodle10.yorku.ca/
Course Description
TechnoPolitics examines the technopolitical convergence in select works of Heidegger, Kroker, Latour, Manovich, Marcuse, Massumi, McLuhan, Simondon, Steigler, Whitehead, and Virilio.
The thread that links these political philosophers and social theorists is a convergence in the belief that technology alters existence in terms of self and other, agency, consciousness, intimacy, intelligence, reason, life, embodiment, identity, and gender.
The teleology of humans defining their world through fabrication, the instrumental direction of tools and technology, is altered in what Steigler calls ‘originary technicity’: in human/ technological interface there is no obvious distinction between doer and means; technology and human endeavor are coupled in a manner in which technology constructs the human, as much as, perhaps more than, the human constructs technology.
This course has three objectives: 1) To determine how key thinkers in the 20th and 21st centuries have constructed the techno-human interface. 2) To determine how these same thinkers have derived not simply a politics of technology but a new political genre: technopolitics. And, 3) to examine the terrain of technopolitics as a contested terrain.
Grade Assignment
Seminar Presentation |
20% |
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Discussion Forum: (Moodle course website) |
10% |
weekly postings |
Weekly Seminar Participation: |
10% |
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Paper & Film abstract: |
5% |
Due March 22 |
Essay (20 pages, 5000 words) |
40% |
Due April 26 |
2 minute film |
15% |
Seminar Presentation consists of conducting the seminar for one of the weeks however you see fit with the qualifiers that the material needs to be covered and questions posed for discussion.
Discussion Board – post :
- Material and questions relating to your seminar presentation
- observations/comments/musing (written, images, audio files)
regarding issues relating to cyborgology, technology, digitality, nature, politics,
etc.
Discussion Board posting can be done daily, weekly.
The aim is to have an interactive discussion as well as posting your own observations
Paper and Film Abstract
A one page abstract outlining the subject of the paper and film and the course material to be used.
Essay Assignment
The aim of the essay is to critically engage course material on the topic of your choice relating to technopolitics. A minimum of six texts on the course must be integrated into your essay.
Film
A 2-minute film must accompany the essay. The film can be shot on a phone camera, digital still camera, video camera, or computer web cam and it can use found footage as long as the footage is altered by you.
If you are using a pc the Windows Movie Maker can be downloaded free from
http://www.soft82.com/download/Windows/Windows_Movie_Maker
If you are using an Apple then use iMovie or Final Cut Express.
The film is to be processed as a QuickTime DVD quality.
The film is to be posted on http://www.youtube.com/ or http://www.vimeo.com/ with a link on the course Moodle Discussion Forum.
Books and ebooks
- Bruno Latour, 2004. Politics of Nature (Harvard University Press)
- Brian Massumi, 2002. Parables for the Virtual (Duke university Press)
- Marshall McLuhan, 1964. Understanding Media, The Extension of Man (Ginko Press)
- Bernard Steigler, 2010. For A New Critique of Political Economy (Polity)
- Bernard Stiegler, 1998. Technics and Time, 1. The Fault of Epimetheus (Stanford University Press)
eArticles
- Arthur Kroker, Hyper-Heidegger
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=348
- Martin Heidegger, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’
http://a.aaaarg.org/text/2160/question-concerning-technology
- Martin Heidegger, ‘The Thing’
http://a.aaaarg.org/text/5231/thing
- Herbert Marcuse, ‘Some Social Implications of Modern Technology’ pp. 41-65 of Technology, War and Fascism http://a.aaaarg.org/text/4429/collected-papers-herbert-marcuse-1-technology-war-and-fascism
Seminar & Reading Schedule
January 4 |
Introduction |
January 11 |
Manovich, Software Takes Command (ebook on Moodle 6083 site)
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January 18 |
McLuhan, Understanding Media, The Extension of Man (ebook on Moodle 6083 site) 1. Medium is the Message
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January 25 |
Heidegger, Marcuse, Kroker (earticles on Moodle 6083 site) |
February 1 |
Whitehead, Modes of Thought (print copy) |
February 8 |
Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1 (ebook on Moodle 6083 site) |
February 15 |
Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1 (ebook on Moodle 6083 site) |
March 1 |
Latour, Politics of Nature (print copy) |
March 8 |
Latour, Politics of Nature (print copy) |
March 15 |
Virilio, Speed and Politics (ebook on Moodle 6083 site) |
March 22 |
Steigler, For A New Critique of Political Economy (print copy) |
March 29 |
Massumi, Parables for the Virtual (print copy) The Autonomy of Affect 3. The Political Economy of Belonging and the Logic of Relation Strange Horizon: Buildings, Biograms & the Body Topologic _________ Rodney |
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Copyright © - Shannon Bell - All rights reserved |