Elemental Media Studies: Everyday Technologies, Materials, and Extraction
AMST 254
Fall 2026
| Section:
01
|
| Crosslisting:
ENVS 275 |
What materials make media technologies possible? From the silver used in photographic film to the plastics that make vinyl records and other consumer goods possible, media depends on natural resources and industrial processes that are often hidden from view. This course examines the extractive infrastructures that constitute the material components of everyday technologies. Drawing from the field of elemental media studies' interest in the life cycle of technology, we will trace how sites like mines and landfills are critical to the production and disposal of these technologies. Objects of study include media technologies such as film and video game consoles as well as everyday commodities like bikinis and shaved ice. Together these examples reveal how popular objects are embedded in global systems of extraction, labor, and waste. We will pay particular attention to how corporations rehearse colonial, racialized, and gendered tropes to render certain land, water, and bodies as naturally suited for extraction and disposal. |
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
|
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Sample readings: Teresia Teaiwa, ¿bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans¿ (1992) Raiford Guins, ¿Landfill Legend¿ in Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife (2014) Kyle Devine, Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music (2019) Grace A. Akese and Peter C. Little, ¿Centering the Korle Lagoon: exploring blue political ecologies of E-Waste in Ghana¿ (2019) Hi¿ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (2022)
Heather Davis, Plastic Matter (2022) Siobhan Angus, Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (2024) Brian Jacobson, The Cinema of Extractions: Film Materials and Their Forms (2025)
|
Examinations and Assignments:
Two essays and a class presentation |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course will be taught by incoming faculty member Naima Adams. |
Instructor(s): STAFF
Times: ..T.R.. 02:50PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 13 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 3 | FR: 2 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
|
|