January @ GSAS

Join my January@GSAS course this month. 

This discussion-based course explores select themes in the cultural history of the computer through an examination of classic and not-so familiar cinematic representations of computers and selected readings from computer pioneers, philosophers, historians, and science fiction authors. Films offer a window into the wider cultural life of computer devices: as banal machines, imaginative technologies, and objects of criticism and philosophical contemplation.

Our discussions focus on three key themes in the cultural history and popular philosophy of the computer:

  • First, we explore philosophical questions made visible through the dissemination of electronic devices and artificially intelligent agents: What makes human intelligence unique? To what extent are changing definitions of the “human” a function of the “artificial”? Are technologies of automated thinking ever totally under control?
  • Second, we consider the history of computers and their changing cultural positions: For what technical problems were early computers developed, and how did this affect the trajectory of their development and symbolic meaning? How do forms of communication brought on by digital media shape human society and culture? What new forms of subjectivity have been activated by computer devices: online personas, divided selves, alter-egos?
  • Finally, we will address the formal and aesthetic relationship between computers and other screen media: What is the historical relationship between the development of computer graphics and other screen media (motion pictures, oscilloscopes, television)? How are computers represented in cinema, in what ways have the media qualities of computer interfaces penetrated into the styles and narrative devices of cinema? How do filmic fantasies of computer vision and representation shape expectations for actual computer interfaces? What has the computer done to cinema in the time of Netflix, Roku, Vine, and YouTube?