I teach undergraduate courses within science and technology studies, history of Cold War science and technology, media studies, and cultural studies. I’m a facilitator at heart so my classes are designed with an eye toward helping students develop both scholarly rigor and personal reflexivity.
Freshman Writing Seminars I have taught recently:
Science, Technology, and the American Counterculture
This course looks to the American “countercultures” of the 1960s and 1970s- the communalists, the New Left, the Black Panthers, amongst others— as case studies through which we might examine the interweaving of science, technology, and utopian politics. Social movements in this period are often thought of as a rejection of Cold War techno-rationality. However, many embraced scientific knowledge and technical projects as a means for advancing their own ostensibly liberatory goals, often appropriating industrial and military technologies and repurposing them— attempting to build a new society with the tools of the old. This, as one might imagine, has particular and often unpredictable consequences. SYLLABUS
Digital Media, Digital Cultures
This course introduces students to the social, cultural, and historical study of digital media. We will critically examine the technological hardware and cultural practices that make up computing. Students will gain a basic understanding of historiography (how do narratives of computing get told and retold and to what end?), media theory (what exactly is computing and how does it shape communication?), and politics (who, specifically, benefits? How is this contested?). As such, we will locate “digital cultures” in a variety of places, some perhaps unexpected. SYLLABUS
Freshman Writing Seminars I have taught recently:
Science, Technology, and the American Counterculture
This course looks to the American “countercultures” of the 1960s and 1970s- the communalists, the New Left, the Black Panthers, amongst others— as case studies through which we might examine the interweaving of science, technology, and utopian politics. Social movements in this period are often thought of as a rejection of Cold War techno-rationality. However, many embraced scientific knowledge and technical projects as a means for advancing their own ostensibly liberatory goals, often appropriating industrial and military technologies and repurposing them— attempting to build a new society with the tools of the old. This, as one might imagine, has particular and often unpredictable consequences. SYLLABUS
Digital Media, Digital Cultures
This course introduces students to the social, cultural, and historical study of digital media. We will critically examine the technological hardware and cultural practices that make up computing. Students will gain a basic understanding of historiography (how do narratives of computing get told and retold and to what end?), media theory (what exactly is computing and how does it shape communication?), and politics (who, specifically, benefits? How is this contested?). As such, we will locate “digital cultures” in a variety of places, some perhaps unexpected. SYLLABUS