Race and/as Technology
In this Senior Capstone, we will take up Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s powerful formulation and provocation of “race and/as technology” to examine, analyze, and historicize “the how of race” through media. Our readings, media objects, and discussions will distribute our attention across critical analysis and constructive redress—we’ll think through problems and potentials together. In doing so, we will take seriously both the inequities produced by race and/as technology and the life worlds made possible through race and/as technology.
In the first part of the course, we will survey a variety of racialized contexts and effects connected to different media forms such as photography, film, television, and social media. In the second part of the course, students will design research projects around media objects of their choice, culminating in a 15-page paper. Along the way, students will explore multiple analytic methods and scaffold their research through workshops, peer reviews, and creative in-class assignments.