Core course 2 - Technology and Cultural Form: Debates, Models, Dialogues

This is the second core course in the new Digital Media: Technology and Cultural Form MA programme and it offers a series of debates, models and dialogues on the issue of technology and cultural form.

The course is divided in two parts and in the first part it develops those questions of power, politics and subjectivity which were introduced in the first core course. In the context of the relation between technology and power we will explore issues of surveillance and control and globalisation. In the context of technology and politics we will investigate diasporas and the re-organisation of news journalism. And in the context of technology and subjectivity we will look at Foucault's notion of technologies of the self and at more recent work on posthumanism. This part of the course highlights the key conceptual concerns of a contextualised approach to digital media plus the relevant debates and models formulated by key figures such as Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway and N. Katherine Hayles.

The second part of the course consists of four sessions: nature/culture, systems, networks, spaces of flows. Here we offer a more abstract, creative and dialogic analysis of some of the ideas which have been generated under the banner of 'new media' and through debates on technology, subjectivity, politics and power. Where the ideas addressed in this part of the course are associated with some of the more deterministic thinking and writing of new media, they will be grounded and interrogated here in four sessions structured and organised as a dialogue between two individuals representing different theoretical and/or practical interests.

The aim here is to generate a dialogue around some of the most intellectually stimulating, contentious and contemporary ideas in the field without necessarily seeking a resolution or synthesis. Concepts of networks, systems, nature, culture, spaces and flows rightly remain open and contested in contemporary theory and culture, and this part of the course seeks to help you develop your own critical and where appropriate, practical perspective.

Topics discussed on this course will include:

Technology and power (surveillance and control; globalisation)
Technology and politics (diasporas; technology, organisation and news)
Technology and subjectivity (technologies of the Self; the posthuman; nature/culture; systems; 'alternative' networks ; spaces of flows)

By the end of the course you should be able to:

articulate central debates in the relationship between technology and power, technology and politics and technology and subjectivity
critically examine the theoretical models developed by key figures addressed in the course
develop your understanding of technology in one of the areas specified in the course
recognise and represent the contest of meaning over contemporary concepts addressed in the second part of the course.

Assessment Method

The course will be assessed by means of one 5-6000 word essay. This mode of assessment reflects the more specialised topic based approach of the second core course which may provide the basis for your own research interests.