Tag Archives: seminar

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 Design for Social Impact

The social impact of technologies is typically thought about fairly late, if ever, in the design process. Indeed, it can be difficult at design time to predict what effects technologies will have. Nevertheless, design decisions can inadvertently “lock in” particular values early on. In this course, we will draw on science & technology studies, technology design, and the arts to analyze the values embodied in technology design and to design technologies to promote positive social impact. What social and cultural values do technology designs consciously or unconsciously promote? To what degree can social impact be “built into” a technology? How can we take social and cultural values into account in design?

Instructor : Margaret Jack

Sample Syllabus

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 Race, Culture, Design & Technology

This seminar course is a survey on the work done on thinking about the politics and ethics of design and technology, particularly with regards to the politics of race and culture. Drawing from a range of fields and disciplines that study cultural and racial difference in nuanced ways: anthropology, cultural studies, Black studies, settler-colonial and indigenous studies, and postcolonial and decolonial theory, we will put discourses from these disciplines into conversation with discourses from fields that deal with materializing new ways of living and being via technology like art, design, architecture, and computer science.

Topics we will cover in the course include the history of politics and ethics in design, design justice, decolonising design, race and technology, cosmofuturisms and cosmotechnics. We will have readings that deal with subjects and contexts outside of the United States, including Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia.

Instructor: Ahmed Ansari

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 Histories, Theories & Practices of Haptics

Since at least the 1980s, haptics technologies have teased us with a seductive promise to transform the landscape of digital communication. However, contemporary deployments of haptics remain limited primarily to vibration feedback emanating from video game controllers, smartphones, and wearable fitness trackers, still falling far short of reaching the ‘perfect haptics’ sought after by those in the field. Beginning with the technology’s origins in 18th century electrical experiments and nineteenth century experimental psychology labs, we explore the technogenesis of haptics, with the intent of understanding how haptics was shaped by the changing historical contexts of its gradual emergence. We will then turn to contemporary efforts to design and commercialize more advanced forms of haptics technologies, learning from both the successes and failures of various case studies, including remote manipulation interfaces, sensory substitution systems, virtual reality bodysuits, video game controllers, and teledildonic cybersex wearables.

Instructor : David Parisi

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar

DM-GY 9113 Science, Technology, and Society

What makes something a scientific fact? What is the social impact of new technologies? Who in society benefits and who is harmed by the rapid development of modern science and technology? These are just some of the questions tackled by researchers in the field of Science and Technology Studies, an interdisciplinary field that studies the interconnections between science, technology, and society. In this graduate-level survey of the field, students will become familiar with current topics of scholarly interest in the field such as critical data studies, feminist objectivity, infrastructure studies, cyborg theory, and actor-network theory. We will also draw from other interdisciplinary fields, such as Black studies and disability studies, to broaden our engagement with questions of how assessments of and interventions upon human difference are shaped by technology.

Students will be assessed through a combination of short written assignments, in class engagement, and a term paper. In class participation will be informed by weekly readings of current scholarly literature. The term paper can take the form of a research paper or a deep dive into an area of theoretical interest, decided in consultation with the professor.

Instructor : Danya Glabau

sample syllabus