ANTH 341.001/ CLST 301.001 Information Age Cultures: On the Trail of Information Technologies

Mondays, Wednesdays, 12:30-1:45 pm

Li-007

Samuel G. Collins

pages.towson.edu/scollins

Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2-3:30 pm

Class Description

The twenty-first century finds a surfeit of narratives chronicling the emergence of "information society." Some of these posit a decisive break with the past, an "information society" so different than preceding "Fordist" or "Gutenberg" eras as to engender entirely new modes of being. Other works locate information society at the apex (or aporia) of developments in culture, politics or library science. In these, information society is only explicable in light of earlier "epochs"--a "Gutenberg Galaxy" giving way to more "cool" mediums, the vertical organization of Fordism giving way to post-Fordist, flexible networks.

Against those suspect meta-narratives, we will examine information society as part of continuing process of rapid modernization that began (in some formulations) at the end of the Renaissance involving rationalization, commodification, alienation/anomie as well as shifts in production and the politics of space. Grasping the immensity of this "information society" means moving outside of the confines of any one institution or discourse--beyond "information society" as the sum of technological advancements, as organizational shifts, as legal frameworks of intellectual property and surveillance, as "mediated" modes of being. It also mean moving beyond singular, cultural contexts where (in the case of the US), teleologies of information society seem axiomatic within the confines of ideologies of American progress. Moving to examples drawn mostly from East Asia “de-naturalizes” technological progress, imbricating it in other contexts of social and cultural life and interrogating the bounded, cultural assumptions within which we are encouraged to frame questions of information society.

And this will be the jumping off point for our semester project—an analysis of cell phones and other ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in Japan and South Korea. Utilizing Actor Network Theory (ANT), a robust approach to social life that allows us to see agency in what have been heretofore been considered mere “extensions” of human agency and cognition, we will look to representations of ICTs in Korean and Japanese film and television for data suggesting sites of new human/ICT hybridities.

Working in teams, students will develop coding for their observations, collect and analyze data, and, finally, present their work to their peers. Instead of the “meaning” of information society, this research will instead demonstrate the variety of ways ICTs are taken up as “tokens” or “quasi-objects” in emergent assemblages of hybrid agents—peoples, machines, spaces, social relations, institutions, discourses. In this way, Actor Network theory can be utilized to trace a “network society” characterized by the hyperbolic multiplication of inter-agencies. All of this multimedia complexity will be posted on the class “Ning” site, where we might share it with other researchers.

In the end, students will not only understand the contradictions of information society, but they will gain the tools to trace the course of their own, complex associations in these powerful fields.

Learning Goals
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Understand and explain diverse theories of "information society": technological, economic,
political, social and cultural.

2. Understand, debate and assess the concept of "information society" from an anthropological perspective.

3. Utilize anthropological method and theory to analyze "information society" in social and
cultural contexts.

4. Critically reflect on the effects of "information society" changes on the lives of the student
herself and the people around her.

5. Communicate anthropological critiques of "information society" to educated groups of non-
anthropologists.

Class Readings

Heckman, Davin (2008). A Small World: Smart Houses and the Dream of the Perfect Day. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Ito, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, eds. (2005). Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Latour, Bruno (2007). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory.

In addition, articles will be assigned from online journals available through Cook Library.

Class Assignments:

1). Assignment #1—Quizzes over readings and lectures (five quizzes, each worth 10 points). Students will be periodically tested over course content (readings, lectures, activities and films) in order to measure comprehension.

2). Assignment #2—Team projects (50 points). In this class, we will undertake a semester-long project analyzing ICTs (information and communication technologies) in Korea and Japan. The project has both a team- and an individual component. The team component involves several stages:

--The formation of teams (September 15). Students will form teams of 5.

--Design of Ning team site (October 6).

--Designing coding for film and television analysis (October 27)

--Data collection, with sample posted on Ning (November 17).

--Team presentations (on line and in class) (December 8-12).

3). Assignment #3—Individual Papers (December 15, 50 pts.). Students will analyze data collected in teams according their own interests in information (in the context of class readings and lectures).

4). Final examination (December 16, 50 points): A combination of “word-bank” and short answer questions covering lectures, readings and major themes explored during the semester.

class grading

Your final grade will be computed by adding together the following point values for graded assignments and examinations:

A 186+

A- 180-185

B+ 174-179

B 166-173

B- 160-165

C+ 154-159

C 146-153

C- 140-145

D+ 134-139

D 120-133

F <120

Class Schedule:
Week 1 (9/3-9/5): Class Introduction: Theories of Information Society—Progress, Utopia, Dystopia and the Technological Sublime

Assigned reading: Heckman, pp. 1-37

Film: Modern Times (1936)

Week 2 (9/8-9/12): Theories of Information Society Part 2—Critical Theory, Ideology, Hegemony, Alienation, Commodity Fetishism.

Assigned reading: Heckman, pp. 38-94

Bunten, Alexis (2008). “Sharing Culture or Selling Out?: Developing the Commodified Persona in the Heritage Industry.” American Ethnologist 35(3): 380-395. [Anthrosource]

–Film: "Virtual Friends" (2000)

September 10–Change of schedule period ends.

Week 3 (9/15-9/19): Theories of Information Society, Part 3—Science and Technology Studies (STS), Anthropological Approaches to Information Society, Network Society.
–Actor-network theory and the practice of AIT.

Assigned reading: Heckman, pp. 95-139

Latour, pp. 1-26

Week 4 (9/22-9/26): The Cyborg Self
–Home and Habitus

--Power and Technologies of the Self

--Governmentalities and Neoliberalism

--The Neoliberal Self

Assigned Reading: Heckman, pp. 140-170

Latour, pp. 27-42

Rotenberg, Robert (2005). “The Power of Your Influence: Internet mediated transnational urbanism.” City & Society 17(1): 65-80. [Anthrosource]

Week 5 (9/29-10/3): Actor Network Theory

--Distributed Cognition

--Information and Context
--Information and Commodities

Assigned Reading: Latour, pp. 43-86

Ito, pp. 1-16

Film: TBA

Week 6 (10/6-10/10): Actor Network Theory, Part 2

--Ecologies of Information Society

--Anthropological Fieldwork on Information Society

Assigned Reading: Latour, pp. 87-120

Ito, pp. 19-40

Kipnis, Andrew B. (2008). “Audit Cultures: Neoliberal governmentality, socialist legacy, or technologies of governing?” American Ethnologist 35(2): 275-89. [Anthrosource]

Week 7 (10/13-10/17): Neoliberal Exceptions

--Nationalism and Identity

--Work and Information Society

--Free labor and moral economies

--The politics of Sampling

Assigned Reading: Latour, 121-158

Ito, pp. 41-60

Fong, Vanessa (2004). Filial Nationalism Among Chinese Teenagers with Global Identities. American Ethnologist 31(4): 631-648. [Anthrosource]

Film: The Big Sellout (2006)

Week 8 (10/20-10/24): Asian Mediascapes—Japan and Korea

--Colonialism, Identity and Representation

Latour, pp. 159-172

Ito, pp. 61-76

Yoon, Kyongwon (2006). “The Making of Neo-Confucian Cyberkids: representations of young mobile phone users in South Korea.” New Media & Society 8(5): 753-771. [Academic Search]

Film: TBA

Week 9 (10/27-10/31) Anthropological Fieldwork on Information Society, Part 2—Coding

Assigned Reading:

Latour, pp. 173-218

Ito, pp. 77-122

Week 10 (11/3-11/7): Mass media and global culture

Assigned Reading:

Latour, pp. 219-246

Ito, pp. 123-164

Hjorth, Larissa (2007). “Home and Away: a Case Study of the Use of Cyworld Mini-Hompy by Korean Students Studying in Australia.” Asian Studies Review 31(4): 397-407. [Academic Search]

Film: Mixtape, Inc. (2006)

Week 11 (11/10-11/14): Advanced capitalism and the world system

November 9: Last day to withdraw with a ‘W’.

–Globalization and Inequality

Assigned readings: Latour, pp. 247-262

Ito, pp. 143-182

Stoller, Paul (1996). “Spaces, Places, and Fields: the Politics of West African Trading in New York City’s Informal Economy.” American Anthropologist 98(4): 776-788. [Anthrosource]

Comaroff, Jean (1999). “Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes From the South African Postcolony.” American Ethnologist 26(2): 279-303. [Anthrosource].

Week 12 (11/17-11/21): Imaginaries and the nation-state
Assigned Readings: Ito, pp. 183-256

Week 13 (11/24):
November 26-30: Thanksgiving Break

Film: TBA

Week 14 (12/1-12/5): Information Society and the Emergence of New Orders of Power/Knowledge

Assigned Reading: Ito, pp. 257-310

Film: TBA

Week 15 (12/8-12/12): Tracing Information Society’s Networks

--Team Presentations

Week 16 (12/15): Review for Final Examination

notes

1. Although exams and graded work will remain as stated above, I may have to change different readings or films on the syllabus throughout the semester. I will, in any case, try to give you ample warning of any syllabus changes.

2. Each student is required to review and understand the University's rules regarding cheating and plagiarism (Towson University Undergraduate Catalog, Appendix F). Neither will be tolerated in my class and will result in a flunking grade.

Department Statement on Academic Dishonesty

The faculty of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice take a strong stand against Academic Dishonesty of all forms. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any class. It includes, but is not limited to, any form of cheating or unapproved help on an exam or academic exercise, copying someone else’s written work without citation, presenting fabricated information as legitimate, any unauthorized collaboration among students, or assisting someone to cheat in any way. All students have the ethical responsibility for doing their own work. A student who is uncertain about whether or not something constitutes academic dishonesty in a particular class has the obligation to see their instructor for clarification. Consistent with university policy, the minimum penalty for academic dishonesty in any form is determined by the individual faculty member in each class, and may consist of ““a reduced grade (including “F” or zero) for the assignment; a reduced grade (including ““F””) for the entire course,”” or other options as stipulated in Appendix F of the Undergraduate Catalog. Students who are charged with academic dishonesty must remain enrolled in the course and cannot withdraw. Instructors who make the determination that academic dishonesty has occurred will notify the student in writing of the finding, the penalty, and the process for appeal. The same written notice will be forwarded

3. Students with learning disabilities should register at the Disability Support Services Office.

4. Late work: Late assignments will be accepted at ½ credit (<2 days late) or ¼ credit (2-4 days late). After 4 days, late work will no longer be accepted.

5. Make-up Work: Under extraordinary circumstances, documented by physicians, police, etc., students may be allowed to make-up missed work.

6. Students who are disruptive may be dismissed from class.

7. This course may be repeated only once without the prior permission of the Academic Standards Committee.

explanation of grading

explanation of grading

Consistent with University policy, the following grades will be assigned according to the designated criteria:

A: A superior performance surpassing assigned work in unique and novel ways and

integrating diverse ideas from a wide range of sources in addition to those discussed in class.

A-

B+

B: Excellent work surpassing the expectations of the assignment and demonstrating initiative

and a willingness to move beyond the basic requirements of the assigned work.

B-

C+

C: Satisfactory work meeting all basic requirements of the assignment.

D+

D: Work in some way less than satisfactory. Although conforming to basic requirements in

some way, the completed work is nevertheless not a coherent response to the

assignment.

F: A profoundly unsatisfactory performance which doesn't meet

the intent of the assignment at any level.