ANTH 3033 - Digital Anthropology

Goals: This course introduces digital anthropology by considering the material and sociocultural contexts of the design and production of hardware, the work of code and software design, and the use of digital technologies, software, games and networks (social or otherwise.) Since the digital is global in scope and local in practice, we also look at how the digital works between different locations and cultures: the globalization of social media, the circulation of games and software, or questions of the material conditions of production and electronic waste.

Content: Human history has been dominated by the use of physical tools and analog devices. Over the past few decades, however, we have witnessed the dramatic proliferation of digital tools and technologies throughout our everyday lives. Digital information, its management, and movement through networks and technological apparatuses are a human construction and as such are a prime site for studying humanity at this moment. Digital anthropology examines what the arrival of these new technologies mean for human culture and sociality—what it means to be digitally human.

Credits: 4