NOTE:  Required and Additional Optional Readings are links directly from the relevant sections of this syllabus.  Special note:  The log ot a 1 - 1/2 hour guest MOO session with special guest Heather Menzies can be found here.
 

This course will consider the ways in which information technologies are constructed in ways that imply values and power relations. Some of the theoretical questions we will consider throughout the course are: What is the connection between technology and gender? What impact does technology have on our sense of being and place? How are decisions about technology affected by history, politics and economics?

In particular, the course will deploy historical, epistemological and feminist theories to build a critical stance toward the effects of technological change in various sites such as the office, home and school and in the Third World.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Reading kit available at the University bookstore.
Heather Menzies, Whose Brave New World?: The Information Highway and the New Economy, Toronto, ONT: Between the Lines, 1996.

OPTIONAL EXTRA READINGS:

Links to optional extra readings will be added to specific sections of the class schedule when relevant. Other more "global" readings will be collected here. This section will be under construction throughout the course; please feel free to suggest readings that may be of interest.

• Center for Research on Information Access at Columbia University
• Women in Global Science and Technology Network

Individual Presentation, to be assigned first week of classes (25%) This includes an oral presentation of one of the assigned readings and the submission of a five page double spaced paper.

Proposal, 5 pages (10%) Due: October 21, 1997

Essay, 20-25 pages (65%) Due: November 25, 1997

There will be no Registrar-scheduled final examination. Assignments submitted after the deadline will be penalized with the loss of a grade (ie: A- to B+) for each day late.

GRADING POLICY: A (92-100), A- (86-91) B+ (81-85), B (77-80), B- (71-76) C+ (65-70), C (62-64), C- (59-61) D+ (55-58), D (50-54) F (0-49)
 
 
READINGS:

Readings (aside from selections from Menzies or available on the Web) are from the collection "Readings for COMS 623" available in the bookstore.

September 9:  Introduction, Definition of Terms

U. Franklin, "Chapter One," The Real World of Technology, Toronto: Anansi Press, 1990, pp. 11-35.

J. Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review, Vol. 91, 1986, pp. 1053-75.

D. Bell, "The Social Framework of the Information Society," in M.L. Dertoozos and J. Moses, (eds.), The Computer Age: A 20 Year View, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979, pp. 500-549.

Beniger, J. T., "Introduction," The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986, pp. 1-59.

Overheads for Sept. 9

September 16, The Social Construction of Gender and Technology

S. Harding, "Eurocentric Scientific Illiteracy - A Challenge for the World Community," in S. Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 1-22.

F. Henwood, "Establishing Gender Perspectives on Information Technology: Problems, Issues and Opportunities," In E. Green, E. Owen and D. Pain, (eds.), Gendered by Design?: Information Technology and Office Systems, London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 1993, pp. 31-49.

S. Turkle, "Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet," Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Toronto, ONT: Simon and Schuster, 1995, pp. 9-26.

van Zoonen, L. "Feminist Theory and Information Technology," Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 14, 1992, pp. 9-29.

Optional Reading:
Sherry Turkle's Home Page. Includes links to some of her other recent publications.

September 22, The Global Economy

H. Menzies, "Across the Digital Divide: Manufacturing as Global Agility," pp. 80-108.

Panos Institute, The Internet and the South: Superhighway or Dirt-Track? http://www.tme.nl/news40.html

United Nations, Report on the Expert Workshop on 'Global Information through Computer Networking Technology in the follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW)', gopher://gopher.un.org/00/sec/dpcsd/daw/REP

Third World Network, "Modern Science in Crisis: A Third World Response," in S. Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 484-518.

Optional Further Reading:

Panos Home Page Contains links to a > 

Transfer interrupted!

WomenWatch, the home page referred to the the Expert Workshop report (above).
 
 

September 30, Guest Lecturer, Dr. Pushkala Prasad, Faculty of Management

P. Prasad, "Symbolic Processes in the Implementation of Technological Change: A Symbolic Interactionist Study of Work Computerization," Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36, pp. 1994, 1400-1429.

P. Prasad, "Working with the 'Smart' Machine: Computerization and the Discourse of Anthropomorphism in Organizations," Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, Vol. 1, 1995, pp. 253-265.

J. Webster, "From the Word Processor to the Micro: Gender Issues in the Development of Information Technology in the Office," In E. Green, E. Owen and D. Pain, (eds.), Gendered by Design?: Information Technology and Office Systems, London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 1993, pp. 111-123.

October 7, Surveillance, Work and Power

E. Balka, "Participatory Design in Women's Organizations: The Social World of Organizational Structure and the Gendered Nature of Expertise," Gender, Work and Organizations, 4(2):99-115, 1997, pp. 99-115.

H. Menzies, "Panopticons and Telework: The New Cybernetics of Labour," pp. 109-130.

M. Poster, "Foucault and Databases: Participatory Surveillance," The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 69-98.

S. Zuboff, "The Information Panopticon," In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984, pp. 615-651.

October 14, Ownership and Copyright in Historical Perspective

D. Brent, "Stevan Harnad's "Subversive Proposal," June, 1995 http://rachel.albany.edu/~ejournal/v5n1/v5n1.html

D. Brent, "Oral Knowledge, Typographical Knowledge, Electronic Knowledge: Speculations on the History of Ownership," November, 1991 http://rachel.albany.edu/~ejournal/v1n3/v1n3.html

J. P. Barlow, "The Economy of Ideas: A Framework for Rethinking Patents and Copyright in a Digital Age," in V. J. Vitanza, (ed.), CyberReader, Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1996, pp. 299-319.

S. Moulthrop, "Shadow of the Informand," November, 1994. http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/Moulthrop/hypertexts/hoptext/A_Beginning07084.html

October 21, Text, Hypertext and Knowledge Relations

Foucault, M. "What is an Author," in P. Rainbow, (ed.), The Foucault Reader, New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1984, pp. 101-120.

J. D. Bolter, "The New Dialogue" and "Interactive Fiction," Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991, pp. 107-146.

Optional Additional Reading: For a detailed look at the implications of hypertext as a rhetorical genre, see Brent, "Rhetorics of the Web" in Kairos 2.1. This is an extended article in hypertext format.

October 28: Federal Policies

"Convergence Policy Statement," Industry Canada, Telecommunications Policy Branch, May 1996 http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_indps/sectors/engdoc/convergence.html

"Executive Summary," Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), February 1996 http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ih01070e.html

Telecommunications Act, 1996 http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html

Optional additional reading: See the Telecommunications Policy link on Doug Brent's Web Page for a corncucopia of additional references, including links to IHAC documents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a vast array of commentary on the US Telecommunications Act, centering on the controversial Communications Decency section.

See in particular the new IHAC report (suspiciously like the old IHAC report...)

November 4, Computers and Education

M. M. Cooper and C. L. Selfe, "Computer Conferences and Learning: Authority, Resistance, and Internally Persuasive Discourse, College English, 1990, 52(8): 847-869.

F. T. Boyle, "IBM, Talking Heads, and our Classrooms," College English, 1993, 55(6):618-626. 1993.

M.C. Tuman, "The New Writing," Word Perfect: Literacy in the Computer Age, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, pp. 81-108.

Browse J. O'Donnell, "New Tools for Teaching" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/teachdemo/teachdemo.html

Optional Additional Reading: Brent, "Rhetorics of the Web" in Kairos 2.1. This extended article in hypertext format was suggested for Oct. 21. It will also be relevant here for its discussion of the educational implications of hypertext..

Kairos 2.2 InterMoo with Myron Tuman.  (Look way down the contents page for this issue of Kairos.)

November 11, Reading Week

November 18, Communication Styles and the Internet

C. Adams, "'This is Not Our Fathers' Pornography': Sex, Lies and Computers," In C. Ess, ed., Philosophical Perspective on Computer Mediated Communication, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 147-170.

D. M. Dalaimo, "Electronic Sexual Harassment,"

J. Dibble, "A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society" http://www.levity.com/julian/bungle.html

S. Herring, "Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier," June, 1994 http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~weblinks/links/herring.txt

Additional reading:  see the material on the US Cyberporn Debate toward the end of the Telecommunications Policy link on Doug's home page.

Kairos 2.2 Coverweb on Gender and Electronic Discourse

November 25, Guest Speaker: Heather Menzies

A 1 - 1/2 hour guest MOO session with special guest Heather Menzies.  The log of this session can be found here.  (What's a MOO?  Look here.)

December 2, The Cyborg Potential

D. Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York, NY: Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-181.

H. Menzies, "A Plea for Time-A Plea for Our Times," and "On Our Own Terms," pp. 131-164.

C. Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," In C. Gray, ed., The Cyborg Handbook, New York, NY: Routledge, 1996, pp. 407-421.