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New media technologies have intensified and transformed the way we communicate, the way we learn, and the way we teach. They have, we might say, transformed the student and transformed the teacher. But what is the nature of these changes? Cultural and new media studies are specifically oriented toward understanding the ways in which culture, nature and technology are converging to intensify and transform everyday life. This course provides a forum for exploring technocultural issues such as cyborgs and hybridity, digital property, cyberpunk fiction, the posthuman, AI and AEI, information warfare, virtual reality, third nature and religion. The course is organized around nine modules that correspond to the chapters and themes in the text, Culture and Technology.
Our intention is to help you develop a framework for understanding the convergences, intensifications and transformations of culture, nature and technology. The overall goal is to provide a forum for "exploring" and "doing" cultural and new media studies. One major effort will be in helping you explore the interrelationships among culture, nature and technology. A second effort is to help you develop a critical interdisciplinary literacy to grapple with controversial issues pertaining to culture, nature and technology. A third effort encourages you to explore provocative challenges to ontology and epistemology as well as class, disability, gender, race and sexuality, offered by new media technologies.