21A.350J / SP.484J / STS.086J / WGS.484J The Anthropology of Computing, Fall 2004

Helmreich, Stefan

Author(s)

Helmreich, Stefan

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Alternative title

The Anthropology of Computing

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Abstract

This course examines computers anthropologically, as meaningful tools revealing the social and cultural orders that produce them. We read classic texts in computer science along with works analyzing links between machines and culture. We explore early computation theory and capitalist manufacturing; cybernetics and WWII operations research; artificial intelligence and gendered subjectivity; the creation and commodification of the personal computer; the hacking aesthetic; non-Western histories of computing; the growth of the Internet as a military, academic, and commercial project; the politics of identity in cyberspace; and the emergence of "evolutionary" computation.

Date issued

2004-12

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/75796

Department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society; MIT Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Other identifiers

21A.350J-Fall2004

local: 21A.350J

local: SP.484J

local: STS.086J

local: WGS.484J

local: IMSCP-MD5-695bd3109970ac7c6e70affc60c0a1a1

Keywords

Computing, machines and culture, computation theory, cybernetics, operations research, artifical intelligence, personal computer, commodification, hacking, hacker, Internet, cyberspace, indentity in cyberspace, cosmology, clockwork, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Industrial Revolution, calculating machine, coding, cold war, Alan Turing, African mathematical systems, counterculture, PC, gaming, open source, free software, software, 21A.350J, 21A.350, SP.484J, SP.484, STS.086J, STS.086

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