L&S Discovery
Links & Notes |
Phone: (510) 642-7463
e-mail: dreyfus[at]berkeley[dot]edu
office hours: Tuesdays 4-6 PM
Location: 303 Moses Hall
Phone: (510) 643-9565 (office, but please try email first)
e-mail: goldberg[at]berkeley[dot]edu
office hours: Monday 3:15-4
Location: BCNM Commons, 340 Moffitt
e-mail: krisfallon[at]berkeley[dot]edu
office hours: Monday 10-12 and by appt.
Location: BCNM Commons, 340 Moffitt
Course Description
This Discovery course explores the question: What is the 'essence' of technology? The goals of this course are to provide students with skills to understand technology in a broad historical context and to gain insight into the perils and promises for contemporary experience.
20th Century ("modern") technologies such as the assembly line and the highway system emphasize efficiency, control, and optimization. In contrast, "post-modern" technologies such as the internet, Google, smartphones, and Facebook are characterized by flexibility and their ability to be reconfigured, as exemplified by genomics, stem cells, robotics, and nanotechnology.
We can view post-modern technologies as "new media" in the sense that they are available for a variety of uses: they are "transformable" and promise to be "transformational". Building on Heidegger's 1954 essay, "The Question Concerning Technology" and related essays, our inquiry will include perspectives from Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, and Brian Arthur. We will establish a theoretical basis for thinking about technology and new media and apply it to a selection of technologies that shape our contemporary experience.
This course has no prerequisites but is geared toward ambitious and mature juniors and seniors who are willing to read carefully, engage in discussions, and think deeply about technology and western values. This course can be used to fulfill the Breadth requirement in Philosophy and Values.
Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Harper Colophon Books. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Available at Campus Bookstore
Course Reader: Available at Replica Copy
2138 Oxford Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 549-9991
| Attendance, Participation, Notetaking | 30% |
| Mid-Term Paper | 30% |
| Final Project/Paper | 40% |
Attendance is required at all lectures and discussion sections. Students are granted 1 unexcused absence from lecture and 1 unexcused absence from discussion. Any additional absences from either lecture or discussion will decrease the student’s grade by one mark per absence (A- becomes B+, B+ becomes B, etc.).
| I. THE ESSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY | |
| Week 1- Introduction January 20th Show and Discuss Film: Being in the World, (2010) Directed by Tao Ruspini |
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| Week 2- Epochs of History, Part I January 27th DISCUSS: Heidegger’s "The Origin of the Work of Art" |
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| Week 3- Epochs of History, Part II February 3rd DISCUSS: Heidegger's "Age of the World Picture", pp. 115-137 |
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| Week 4- The Essence of Technology, Part I February 10th DISCUSS: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" pp. 3-35 |
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| Week 5- The Essence of Technology, Part II February 17th DISCUSS: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" |
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| II. HISTORICAL STAGES OF TECHNOLOGY | |
| Week 6- Meso-Modern Technologies: Disciplinary Power February 24th DISCUSS: Michel Foucault "Docile Bodies" Excerpt on Bio-power |
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Week 7- Modern Technologies: From Efficiency to Hyper-Efficiency Listen to/Read about Modern Day Efficiency Experts: |
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Week 8- The Promise of Plastic: the Universal Materia |
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| III. “POSTMODERN / TRANSFORMATIONAL” TECHNOLOGIES: THE NEW MEDIA | |
| Week 9- Post-Modern Technologies: Transformable, Interchangeable, Reconfigurable, Available March 17th REVIEW: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" DISCUSS: W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology, Free Press, 2009. pp. 203-216. “Technacidy” / “Technicity” |
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**Midterm Paper, 5 Pages, Due Mar 31 ** Choose any Technology not discussed in class and describe how it either fulfills or challenges Heidegger's notions of technology (similar to the way Heidegger analyzes the hydroelectric dam and the the Rhine river.) Paper Assignment PDF |
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| Week 10- Spring Break NO CLASS |
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| Week 11- Brian Arthur and the Nature of Technology March 31st Midterm paper due REVIEW: W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology, Free Press, 2009. pp. 203-216. SPECIAL GUEST: Brian Arthur in Class |
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| Week 12- The Universal Representation: The Computer and Digitalization April 7th DISCUSS: Vannevar Bush, As We May Think. Atlantic Monthly (1945) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush DISCUSS: Selections from Lev Manovich’s Language of New Media: “Principles of New Media: Numerical Representation” and “Myths of the Digital” |
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| Week 13- The Universal Network: The Internet April 14th DISCUSS: Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron. Californian Ideology. http://www.arpnet.it/chaos/barbrook.htm DISCUSS: Selections from Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization by Alex Galloway, “Introduction” by Eugene Thacker, and “Chapter 2: Form” |
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| Week 14- The Universal Code of Life: Stem Cell, DNA and Genomics April 21st DISCUSS: Craig Venter. My Genome: My Life. Excerpts http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Dizikes-t.html DISCUSS: “Biocolage” Katherine Hayles, Critical Art Ensemble, et al. in Art Journal, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 44-63 DISCUSS: Intro to Stem Cells, http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics1.asp DISCUSS: Ronald Bailey, A Stem Cell Christmas Miracle?, http://reason.com/archives/2004/12/01/a-stem-cell-christmas-miracle DISCUSS: Selections from Science: “Selling the Stem Cell Dream” and “Stem Cells: Golden Opportunities with Ethical Baggage.” |
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| Week 15- The Universal Building Block: Nanotechnology April 28th DISCUSS: Eric Drexler, Molecular engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation http://www.pnas.org/content/78/9/5275.full.pdf+html DISCUSS: Selections from The Economist, “Silver Tongues” “The Wizard of Small Things” and “The Smaller the Better” DISCUSS: William McCray, "Will Small Be Beautiful: Making Policies for Our Nanotech Future" |
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| Week 16- Reading - Review Week May 5th |
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| Week 17- Final Exam Week Tuesday, May 11, 11:30-2:30pm location 100 Wheeler **Final Project Presentations (Due also: 5 Page Final Papers) ** |
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