Spring 2020
INF 386G Gender, Technology, and Information
Also offered as Womens and Gender Studies 393.
DESCRIPTION
Definitions of and metaphors for technologies; in-depth analysis of feminism and science and technologies studies, masculinities and technologies, woman's underrepresentation in technology, reproductive and sexual technologies, domestic technologies, design and architecture, book clubs and reading, and gender and (information) articulation work.
COURSE NOTES
Gender, Technology, and Information (INF 385T/WGS 390) critically examines the three elements of the courseââ¬â¢s title in relation to each other. Students will be asked to explore various perspectives on the interactions, historically and currently, among gender, technology, and information. Topics include science and technology studies; techno- and eco-feminism; domestic technologies; reproductive and sexual technologies; virtuality, disembodiment, and gaming; and the gendered history of computing. Students will explore various research methodologies and will produce, along with several other writing assignments, a final paper that discusses a topic of the studentââ¬â¢s choice about the intersection (s) of gender, technology, and information. Graduate students from all disciplines and academic units in the University are welcome in the course, and students may take the class for a letter grade or for credit/no credit. We are also fortunate to have several experts visiting this class from various departments and research centers here at UT. In this course, we will assume a non-essentialist position about gender, i.e., we will not support the assertion that there are some inherent, identifiable differences among people of different genders, nor will we presume the long-established gender binary. We also are interested in gender as broadly as possible, considering but also moving beyond ââ¬Åfeminism and . . .ââ¬Â or ââ¬Åwomen in . . .ââ¬Â as the focus of the course. Technology is the second significant concept for our course. We will not limit our consideration of technology to digital technologies this semester, or, for that matter, only to information and communication technologies (ICTââ¬â¢s). We will examine artifacts such as computers, paper, housework technologies, books, games, sexual and reproductive technologies, and other technologies, while remembering that technology studies includes many other elements, e.g., music, language, literary genres, social conventions, and practices of many kinds. We would like to offer two quick words about the third and final major topic of our work this semester ââ¬â information. While we will use the useful fiction of information as thing, please remember that many scholars consider it only a fiction. As such, information is not ââ¬Åin our mindsââ¬Â or ââ¬Åin filesââ¬Â or the like. The instructors, therefore, will generally avoid locutions such as ââ¬Åcontentââ¬Â when speaking about information and communication. Instead, we will move beyond the cognitivism inherent in information as thing and look more to meaning making, cultural production, and social practice. This last approach complements the critical considerations of gender and technology that also characterize the course.
PREREQUISITES
Graduate standing.