Anthropology of Science
Wesleyan University (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022)
What are scientific facts? How do we know what we know? In this course, students will gain an introduction to thinking about science and technology as cultural practices shaped by power, politics, race, indigeneity, gender, and sexuality. Students will explore how anthropologists, long interested in how "culture" works, have recently turned their gaze toward critically examining the cultures of people in positions of technoscientific power, including nuclear scientists, Wall Street analysts, drone weapon designers, climate scientists, molecular biologists, and more. Students will also be trained in conducting ethnographic fieldwork on a group of experts in their own communities in order to ask questions about scientific rituals, truth-making, and distributions of power and privilege.
What are scientific facts? How do we know what we know? In this course, students will gain an introduction to thinking about science and technology as cultural practices shaped by power, politics, race, indigeneity, gender, and sexuality. Students will explore how anthropologists, long interested in how "culture" works, have recently turned their gaze toward critically examining the cultures of people in positions of technoscientific power, including nuclear scientists, Wall Street analysts, drone weapon designers, climate scientists, molecular biologists, and more. Students will also be trained in conducting ethnographic fieldwork on a group of experts in their own communities in order to ask questions about scientific rituals, truth-making, and distributions of power and privilege.
AI, Algorithms, & Power
Wesleyan University (2020, 2021, 2022)
This course explores artificial intelligence (AI) as a cultural, sociopolitical, and literary object. Course readings will begin with the observations of anthropologists at the post-WWII Macy Conferences on cybernetics. Students will put algorithmic data mining and machine learning in historical context, exploring classification systems and intelligence testing. Students will also examine the reanimation of the artificial human in newer discourses of AI, such as big data and predictive policing, virtual reality and drone strikes in commercial and military operations, health and assistive technology, and play and labor on platforms like Mechanical Turk. Course texts will include speculative fiction on artificial life, social theories of simulation and virtuality, and new work from queer studies and critical race studies interrogating algorithmic bias and the testing and classification of humanity.
This course explores artificial intelligence (AI) as a cultural, sociopolitical, and literary object. Course readings will begin with the observations of anthropologists at the post-WWII Macy Conferences on cybernetics. Students will put algorithmic data mining and machine learning in historical context, exploring classification systems and intelligence testing. Students will also examine the reanimation of the artificial human in newer discourses of AI, such as big data and predictive policing, virtual reality and drone strikes in commercial and military operations, health and assistive technology, and play and labor on platforms like Mechanical Turk. Course texts will include speculative fiction on artificial life, social theories of simulation and virtuality, and new work from queer studies and critical race studies interrogating algorithmic bias and the testing and classification of humanity.
Queer Robotics: Cyborgs in Sci-Fi and Anthropology
Wesleyan University (2019, 2020); Northwestern University (2017)
What do representations of robots and cyborgs in popular film, sci-fi literature, and cultural anthropology tell us about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to be "human"? In this class we will use critical race studies, queer and feminist theory, disability studies, and science and technology studies (STS) to analyze representations of "cyborg" bodies in speculative fiction and ethnography. Our case examples explore the politics of the body through narratives of military research, artificial intelligence, sex work, urbanism and segregation, biotech research, prosthetics and athleticism, new reproductive technologies, and more. We will engage with poetry, film, visual art, and speculative fiction to explore how bodies are dreamed, crafted, and represented.
What do representations of robots and cyborgs in popular film, sci-fi literature, and cultural anthropology tell us about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to be "human"? In this class we will use critical race studies, queer and feminist theory, disability studies, and science and technology studies (STS) to analyze representations of "cyborg" bodies in speculative fiction and ethnography. Our case examples explore the politics of the body through narratives of military research, artificial intelligence, sex work, urbanism and segregation, biotech research, prosthetics and athleticism, new reproductive technologies, and more. We will engage with poetry, film, visual art, and speculative fiction to explore how bodies are dreamed, crafted, and represented.
Technologies of Care
Wesleyan University (2023)
In this seminar students will explore how Feminist STS has conceived of caring technologies and relations. Starting with Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's (2011) call for STS scholars to consider ethical and political obligations to care along more-than-human networks, students will read recent work on compulsions to express care and solidarity with humans and nonhumans. How does thinking about sociotechnical assemblages ask us to consider how we are already entangled in webs of care with material and immaterial forms? What does it mean in practice to work toward good relations as humans with technologies, within environments, and with nonhumans? Students will also consider the centrality of labor to how we understand caring relations. How do transnational circuits of care become encoded into the daily functions of global capitalism? How might demands for care enact their own forms of violence, hindering continuing struggles against personal and structural oppression? This seminar will be set up as a research incubator, and students will have the opportunity to produce and share original research projects on care labor and technology, from topics including computer therapists, feminist health technologies, nursing robots, the global commercial surrogacy industry, sex companion robots, eldercare digital pets, and other contemporary expressions of care labor mediated through technology.
In this seminar students will explore how Feminist STS has conceived of caring technologies and relations. Starting with Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's (2011) call for STS scholars to consider ethical and political obligations to care along more-than-human networks, students will read recent work on compulsions to express care and solidarity with humans and nonhumans. How does thinking about sociotechnical assemblages ask us to consider how we are already entangled in webs of care with material and immaterial forms? What does it mean in practice to work toward good relations as humans with technologies, within environments, and with nonhumans? Students will also consider the centrality of labor to how we understand caring relations. How do transnational circuits of care become encoded into the daily functions of global capitalism? How might demands for care enact their own forms of violence, hindering continuing struggles against personal and structural oppression? This seminar will be set up as a research incubator, and students will have the opportunity to produce and share original research projects on care labor and technology, from topics including computer therapists, feminist health technologies, nursing robots, the global commercial surrogacy industry, sex companion robots, eldercare digital pets, and other contemporary expressions of care labor mediated through technology.
Skin, Sex, State, Software: Surveillance & Society
Wesleyan University (2018); Northwestern University (2018)
What pleasures does the surveillance state gain from looking at us? From feeling and documenting us? How do privacy activists fight back against such surveillance, and what might be wrong with privacy rights discourse? Which groups are always already surveilled? In this class, students will play with notions of surveillance—including sousveillance, lateral surveillance, and counter surveillance—as engaged by queer and feminist studies, the cultural anthropology of expertise, and social studies of science and technology. We will draw on case studies ranging from police technologies, facial recognition software, PornHub’s data collection projects, TSA airport body scanners, Facebook ads, science fiction like Black Mirror, and more to understand how bodies, races, genders, and sexualities are made known and contested by activists, artists, corporations, and governments. Students will also collect data for a creative personal surveillance project culminating at the end of the quarter.
What pleasures does the surveillance state gain from looking at us? From feeling and documenting us? How do privacy activists fight back against such surveillance, and what might be wrong with privacy rights discourse? Which groups are always already surveilled? In this class, students will play with notions of surveillance—including sousveillance, lateral surveillance, and counter surveillance—as engaged by queer and feminist studies, the cultural anthropology of expertise, and social studies of science and technology. We will draw on case studies ranging from police technologies, facial recognition software, PornHub’s data collection projects, TSA airport body scanners, Facebook ads, science fiction like Black Mirror, and more to understand how bodies, races, genders, and sexualities are made known and contested by activists, artists, corporations, and governments. Students will also collect data for a creative personal surveillance project culminating at the end of the quarter.
Risky Borders: Race, Sex, and Techniques of Border Control
Northwestern University (2017)
This course draws from the anthropology of development, international studies, and feminist studies to critically analyze power dynamics of migration in the 21st century. Class texts will explore the politics of border control; militarization, refugees, and smuggling; sex trafficking and forced migration; international development and labor exploitation; and critique discourses of “globalization” that imagine a world of easy connections and flows, digitally and physically. We engage with academic texts as well as film and fiction to explore how migration stories are gendered and racialized, with particular agencies and vulnerabilities, perils and pleasures. By understanding the techniques and technologies of bureaucracy, through examples like airport facial recognition software and US counter-terrorism initiatives, students will also assess expert cultures dictating migration and development futures.
This course draws from the anthropology of development, international studies, and feminist studies to critically analyze power dynamics of migration in the 21st century. Class texts will explore the politics of border control; militarization, refugees, and smuggling; sex trafficking and forced migration; international development and labor exploitation; and critique discourses of “globalization” that imagine a world of easy connections and flows, digitally and physically. We engage with academic texts as well as film and fiction to explore how migration stories are gendered and racialized, with particular agencies and vulnerabilities, perils and pleasures. By understanding the techniques and technologies of bureaucracy, through examples like airport facial recognition software and US counter-terrorism initiatives, students will also assess expert cultures dictating migration and development futures.
Slavery & Human Trafficking in the 21st Century
MIT (2015); Syllabus and Readings available via MIT OpenCourseWare
This course explores the issue of human trafficking for forced labor and sexual slavery, focusing on its representation in recent scholarly accounts and advocacy as well as in other media. Ethnographic and fictional readings along with media analysis help to develop a contextualized and comparative understanding of the phenomena in both past and present contexts. It examines the wide range of factors and agents that enable these practices, such as technology, cultural practices, social and economic conditions, and the role of governments and international organizations. The course also discusses the analytical, moral and methodological questions of researching, writing, and representing trafficking and slavery.
This course explores the issue of human trafficking for forced labor and sexual slavery, focusing on its representation in recent scholarly accounts and advocacy as well as in other media. Ethnographic and fictional readings along with media analysis help to develop a contextualized and comparative understanding of the phenomena in both past and present contexts. It examines the wide range of factors and agents that enable these practices, such as technology, cultural practices, social and economic conditions, and the role of governments and international organizations. The course also discusses the analytical, moral and methodological questions of researching, writing, and representing trafficking and slavery.
