Art 23AC | Women's Studies 23AC | Foundations of American Cyber-Cultures
Greg Niemeyer and Charis Thompson | Fall 2004
University of California, Berkeley
1
Syllabus
Assignments Schedule
Turing Aug 30 to Sept 29
Homepage Oct 1 to Oct 29
Divide Nov 1 to Dec 8
COURSE OVERVIEW:
University of California at Berkeley
Departments of Art Practice, of Rhetoric, and of Women’s Studies
Course Number: Art 23AC, Rhetoric 42AC, and Women’s Studies 23AC
Course Title: Foundations of American Cyber-Cultures
Control Number: 04945
Location: 120 LATIMER
Schedule: MW 12-1 PM Lecture; MW 1-2 PM Tutorial; F 12-1 or 1-2
Discussion Section
Website: http://art.berkeley.edu/coursework/niemeyer/courses/23ac/
Instructors: Prof. Greg Niemeyer, Art/Film Studies
Prof. Charis Thompson, Women’s Studies and Rhetoric
GSI Dan Perkel, Information Management Systems
GSI Megan Finn, Information Management Systems
Office hours: Prof. Niemeyer, Friday 10-12, Kroeber
Prof. Thompson, Wednesday 3-5, 3412 Dwinelle
Dan Perkel, Garron Reading Room, Kroeber
Megan Finn, Garron Reading Room, Kroeber
Foundations of American Cyber-Cultures
How do new media reinforce pre-existing social hierarchies and also offer possibilities
for the transcendence of those very categories? Our course offers students an
opportunity to think critically about, and engage in practical experiments in, the
complex interactions between new media and perceptions and performances of
embodiment, agency, citizenship, collective action, individual identity, time and
spatiality. We pay particular attention to the categories of personhood that make up
the UC Berkeley American Cultures requirements of race and ethnicity, as well as to
gender, nationality, and disability.
New media—and we leave the precise definition of the new media as something to
be argued about over the course of the semester—can be yet another means for
dividing and disenfranchising and can be the conduit of violence and transnational
dominance. At the same time, new media have already begun to offer exciting