Vassar Moodle

Welcome to this 200-level undergraduate reading and discussion seminar, Digital Lives, where we will critically examine the sociological and political dimensions of our digital age. Issues of power, politics, diverse perspectives, identities, and human values are central to this course. Through readings, discussions, interactive activities, and assignments, we will explore how societal power structures and digital technologies co-construct one another. Although these technologies are often promoted as gateways to a distant, desirable future, our conversations will focus on the present, asking critical questions such as: Who designs digital technologies, and who uses them? Who performs the labor required to sustain these innovations? Who lives in the aftermath of technology design and deployment? What are the environmental implications of large-scale computing systems?

In keeping with the course topic, this curriculum employs an interactive approach to critically examine how knowledge about digital technologies is constructed and how larger structural systems of power such as race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and geopolitics— shape these technologies. Each week we will investigate various material and contemporary technologies, including platforms, algorithms, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI). Together we will analyze how the benefits of these technologies are unevenly distributed across social, political, and cultural lines and discuss the new forms of harm they create. Designed to give you a solid grasp of the contemporary issues shaping our “digital lives,” this course requires no prior discipline-specific expertise.