Anthropology of Digital Media
ANTH 309
Spring 2016
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
AMST 311 |
Networked media technologies, from the Internet to mobile phones, are reshaping many aspects of daily life, selfhood, and society. While digital and electronic media seem to make the world smaller, ostensibly facilitating global flows of capital, people, goods, and ideas, this course examines how these technologies co-constitute particular kinds of subjects, accommodating some uses and modes of living more than others. Digital platforms and services, for example, are often designed with elite, technically savvy users in mind, yet are taken up transnationally in diverse and unexpected ways. Media, like other technologies, never exist separately from social life as independent agents of change, but instead emerge through contingent histories, material realities, constellations of discourse, and unequal distributions of power. This course introduces students to the anthropology of digital media and culture, drawing on empirical, ethnographic accounts from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including feminist technology studies, actor-network theory, queer theory critiques, new materialisms, postcolonial studies, and social informatics. Topics include space and place online, media publics, new transnationalisms, design anthropology, big data, social networks, virtuality and embodiment, the social construction of users, mobility and disability, and telecommunication infrastructures.
We will consider emerging media practices in cross-cultural and transnational settings, to examine the situated contexts of design and use, while asking broadly what consequences these technologies have for our social worlds. This course requires intensive reading and writing, including a final project that can be undertaken in a variety of ways, such as an original ethnographic or creative project exploring an emerging media practice. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ANTH |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Boellstorff, Tom. COMING OF AGE IN SECOND LIFE: AN ANTHROPOLOGIST EXPLORES THE VIRTUALLY HUMAN
Burrell, Jenna 2013. INVISIBLE USERS: YOUTH IN THE INTERNET CAFÉS OF URBAN GHANA
Miller, Daniel, and Don Slater 2000. THE INTERNET: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH
Sanjek, Roger and Susan Tratner (eds). EFIELDNOTES: THE MAKINGS OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
Coleman, Gabriella. HACKER, HOAXER, WHISTLEBLOWER, SPY: THE MANY FACES OF ANONYMOUS
Nardi, Bonnie. MY LIFE AS A NIGHT ELF PRIEST: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF WORLD OF WARCRAFT
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Examinations and Assignments:
2 short essays (3-4pp); weekly in-class presentations; final project proposal; final paper/project
Participation in collective online course notes |
| Instructor(s): Kraemer,Jordan Times: ..T.... 01:10PM-04:00PM; Location: ANTH6; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 16 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: 2 | GRAD: 0 | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 4 | FR: X |
| Web Resources: Syllabus |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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