Imagining the World to Come: Internet Cultures, Politics, & Cat Videos

AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES 268S

The American internet we experience today emerges from a long history of technological innovation that reaches back to the post-Civil War era, featuring the dramas and crises of world wars, secret communications, spy agencies, cold war anxieties, counter cultural forces, and lots of copper cable. While this history is important for situating the internet within the politics of the 20th century, it tells only part of the story. For the rest, we must interrogate the cultures of the internet, from the utopian evangelists who claimed cyberspace as the principal refuge of individual liberty, to social media, to hackers, to ransomware, to mis- and dis-information networks. As both 'place' and communication service, our internet has proven to be overwhelmingly full with content, surprisingly fragile *and* robust, and the cause of civilizational decline. As we explore signature moments of the internet's development, we'll carefully study the phenomenon as a cultural site of politics, economics, fun, identity, and security (or lack thereof). To do so, we'll use a few disciplinary practices, including cultural studies, tech studies, media studies, and communication studies. Within this multidisciplinary frame, we'll investigate how people imagine and understand what the internet was and is and map how politics and capitalism shape a thing without boundaries or borders.
Course Attributes: AS HUM

Section 21

Imagining the World to Come: Internet Cultures, Politics, & Cat Videos
INSTRUCTOR: Walsh