Requirements
Students will write three 5 to 7 page papers. Toward the third paper, students will give a presentation exploring the social meaning of an artifact from contemporary computing not covered in our reading - e.g. the iPod™, Xbox®, or Google™ search services.
Grading Policy
Each of the three assignments represents 30% of the subject grade. Students will also be evaluated on class participation, including discussion and in-class writing exercises (10% of grade). Punctual attendance obligatory. There is no final.
Required Texts
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965. ISBN: 026273009X.
Edwards, Paul. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. ISBN: 0262550288.
Adam, Alison. Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 041512963X.
Ceruzzi, Paul E. A History of Modern Computing. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. ISBN: 0262532034.
Helmreich, Stefan. Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. ISBN: 0520208005.
Eglash, Ronald. African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0813526132.
Bear, Greg. Blood Music. New York: iBooks, 2002. ISBN: 0743444965.