The Internet is indeed a reflection of our times. Yet, a product of its social and political context, the Internet was invented in 1970s for the purpose of constructing an intelligence network that would resist a possible nuclear attack. Although initiated by the Military-Academic-Industrial complex of the era, the Internet we know required not only several other innovations, material and technical, but also processes of technological and bureaucratic standardization and internationalization carried by extra-legal international institutions such as IEFT and ICANN as well as US-based National Science Foundation.
Today 42% of world population are Internet users. And the Internet, no doubt, changed the way most of us relate to the outer world and to one another. The governance of the global Net therefore contains critical issues in several spheres of our lives. In this undergraduate seminar we work on the pressing political debates surrounding the governance, regulation and resistance of the Internet. We critically examine theoretical debates about technology, cyber-democracy, historical infrastructures, geo-politics and state surveillance and dataveillance.
*This seminar is taught by Teaching Fellow Zeyno Ustun at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.
PART I: Invention of the Internet
Week 1 | Introduction
Mon – Introduction
Wed – Watch – History Channel – The Invention of the Internet
Week 2
Mon – Abbate, Janet (1999) Inventing the Internet | Read – Introduction
Wed – Abbate, Janet (1999) Inventing the Internet | Read – CH1: White Heat and Cold War
Week 3
Mon – Galloway, Alexander (2004) Protocol – How Control Exists after Decentralization | Read – Introduction
Wed – Galloway, Alexander (2004) Protocol – How Control Exists after Decentralization | Read – CH1:Physical Media
Week 4
Mon – Medina, Eden (2011) Cybernetic Revolutionaries Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile | Read – Introduction: Political and Technological Visions & Conclusion: Technology, Politics, History
Wed – Watch – Eyewar (2013)
PART II: Social and Political Context of Early Networks
Week 5
Mon – NO CLASS – President’s day
Wed – Turner, Fred (2016) – From Counterculture to Cyberculture | Read – Introduction & CH1:The Shifting Politics of the Computational MetaphorWeek 4
Week 6
Mon – Turner, Fred (2016) – From Counterculture to Cyberculture | Read – CH8:The Triumph of the Network Mode
Wed – Watch – We Live in Public
PART III: Politics of the Cloud
Week 7
Mon – Durham, John Peters (2015) The Marvellous Clouds Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media |Read – Introduction: In Medias Res & CH 7:God and Google
Wed – International Women Strike – No Class
Week 8
Mon – Deleuze, Gilles (1992) Postscript on the Societies of Control | Read – 1-6pg
Wed – Terranova, Tiziana (2004) Network Culture | Read – Introduction and CH1: Three Propositions on Informational Cultures
Week 9
Mon – NO CLASS – Spring Break
Wed – NO CLASS – Spring Break
Week 10
Mon – Bratton, Benjamin (2016) The Black Stack | Read – http://www.e-flux.com/journal/53/59883/the-black-stack/
Wed – Pasquale, Frank (2015) The Black Box Society:The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information | Read – CH1:The Need to Know
PART IV: Political Action on the Internet
Week 11
Mon – Critical Art Ensemble Digital Resistance (2000) Explorations in Tactical Media | Read: Introduction & Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere
Wed – Wolfson, Todd (2014) Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left | Read: Introduction and CH1
Week 12
Mon – Castells, Manuel (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope Social Movements in the Internet Age | Read: Introduction and Conclusion
Wed – Gerbaudo, Paolo (2013) Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism | Read: Introduction and CH1
Week 13
Mon – Philip N. Howard (2010) The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Information Technology and Political Islam | Read: Intorduction & Conclusion
Wed – Watch – Killswitch (2014)
Week 14
Mon – Nick Dyer Witheford – Cyberproletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex | Read: Introduction and CH1
Wed – Bifo Berardi – After the Future – Read – Introduction- CH 1
Week 15
Mon – Guest Lecturer Burak Arikan – Data Assymetry | Read: https://github.com/chootka/radical-networks/issues/59
Wed – –The End of Semester–
