Courses

Gender Sexuality & Desire in Cyberspace (80926)

Abstract:

Technology reshapes desire, authenticity and questions of (gender) identity. Cyberspace broke the rules of identity, love and intimacy and reconfigured them. The course addresses the various aspects of the human-technology interface and the ways in which life in cyberspace has done exactly that by way of anonymous disembodied communication, cyber topographies that invoke worlds of fantasies on social networking platforms. We will study the seminal feminist "Manifesto for Cyborgs" as a foundational, epoch making text, and its implications not only for understanding how technology changes gender constructions, but also what this means to those whose intimacy occurs online. It is going to be our goal in this course to make a nuanced and sophisticated appraisal of how cyberspace has reshaped questions about our identity (who am I? what is my emotional world? how do I relate to other people I meet online?) and actions (e.g. dating).

האדם הדיגיטלי בין אוטופיה לדיסטופיה (80961)

Abstract:

This course looks back and tries to draw lines for the cultural and social history of the internet as a technological medium. The purpose of the lesson is to look at the history of the Internet and focus on the cultural and social roots of the medium in the prism of a techno utopia, that is, as a technology that brings about personal and collective liberation, among other virtues.

We will focus on the main characteristics of the medium: open source, openness to information and knowledge, sharing, community, and examine how they are rooted in this digital medium and where they are today. We will examine technological march from the era of ARPAnet (1969), the civilian net (1975), the commercial net (1985), the rise of the World Wide Net - WWW (1989) and the march of technological innovation leading up to Artificial Intellgience. We will conclude the course with the notion of Dystopia.