Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0299 - Technologies of Otherness: Race, Gender, and Disability in the Digital Age

This seminar will explore the interface of technology with gender, race, and disability. It will consider how the concepts of gender, race, and disability are embodied in technologies, and conversely, how technologies shape our notions of gender, race, and disability. It will examine how contemporary products - such as film, TV, video games, science fiction, social networking technologies, and biotech - reflect and mediate long-standing but ever-shifting anxieties about race, gender, and disability. The course will consider the following questions: How do cybertechnologies enter into our personal, social, and work lives? Do these technologies offer new perspectives on cultural difference? How does cyberculture reinscribe or rewrite gender, racial, and sexual dichotomies? Does it open up room for alternative and non-normative identities, cultures, and communities? Does it offer the possibility of transcending the sociocultural limits of the body? Finally, what are the political implications of these digital technologies? Keywords: Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Film and Media Studies, Disability Studies, Queer Studies

Media and Technology Students in this course can expect to spend 10 to 12 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time.