Category Archives: IMA Electives (Legacy Structure – Seminar/Studies)

Courses that count in IMA’s Seminar/Studies category

Spring 2021 Spring 2024

Visual Cultures of the Modern and Global City (MCC-UE 1038)

Examines visual culture of the city, from the dynamics of visuality in the 19th-century modern cityscape to the mega cities of globalization. It addresses the visual dynamics, infrastructure, architecture, public art and design imaginaries of urban spaces, taking New York City and Paris as primary case studies and including other cities from the 19th century to the present. The course will examine the politics of urban design, the city as a site of division, disaster, memory, and political activism. Meets Liberal Arts Core requirement for Societies and Soc Sciences.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

MCC-UE 1038-000 (11427)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Mon,Wed11:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Sturken, Marita

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Spring 2021

Digital Arts and New Media (INTM-SHU 125T)

This course investigates digital art and new media from creative, theoretical, and historical perspectives. We will examine the paradigm shift resulting from the rise of digital art and its expansion as well as explore current ideas, creative strategies, and issues surrounding digital media. The topics of study will include digital image, digital sound, net art, systems, robotics, telematics, data art, and virtual/augmented reality. The course aims to provide students with the means to understand what digital media is, and establish their own vision of what it can become, from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course will consist of lectures, field trips, and small studio-based practices. Prereq: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.

Interactive Media Arts (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 16 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

INTM-SHU 125T-000 (20378)01/25/2021 – 05/14/2021 Tue1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at ShanghaiInstructed by Lee, Inmi

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2021 Spring 2022

Robota Psyche (IM-UH 3313)

What can machines tell us about the human condition? Is something that appears to be intelligent, really intelligent? Is a device that appears to have likes and dislikes “alive”? As robots and Artificial Intelligence become more powerful and prolific, what makes us unique? This course will address these questions by exploring a series of increasingly complex software “creatures” which seem to have qualities usually associated with living beings. This course will primarily follow a classic text that proposes “experiments in synthetic psychology”, with excursions into cybernetics and how it relates to art. Course material will incorporate both theoretical and practical components. Readings include critical analysis regarding the historical and contemporary theories and practices in these fields. Students will develop software “vehicles” which will embody the ideas being explored. By creating and simulating multiple and increasingly complex vehicles, interactions and behaviors will be explored.

Interactive Media (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 16 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)

IM-UH 3313-000 (18591)

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2021

The Speculative Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (INTM-SHU 297T)

This 2-unit interdisciplinary research seminar will be held in conjunction with an international symposium convened by the NYU Center for AI and Culture, which will bring leading scholars, curators, science fiction writers, and heads of major platform research groups to campus. The seminar will host a deeper interdisciplinary conversation on the issues that underpin their work. Seminar participants will meet each of the conference speakers. We will emphasize the overlapping and intersecting histories of “AI” in cognitive science, philosophy, interactive and computer arts, and science fiction literature and film. The frequent back-and-forth between AI in fiction and in fact is the basis of how we will, together, attempt to map the divergent futures of AI. It is said that artificial intelligence will be as important to the twenty-first century as oil was to the twentieth. AI is promoted by China, Europe, Russia and the USA as central to their innovation strategies and, as such, may portend a new computational arms race. There is consensus that geopolitical peace and conflict may be determined by how great nations use AI for good or ill. To define AI is is to conceive what is and is not “intelligence” and what is and is not “artificial.” Because no two cultures understand these basic terms in the same way, they will not understand AI in the same way. As such, any global discussion about the future of AI must be cross-cultural. The more we understand what each culture “means” by AI the more fruitful the collaborative design of AI can be. The seminar is suggested for students of Interactive Media Arts, Computer Science, Political Science, Philosophy, and anyone interested in algorithmic art, automation, machine vision, computational economics, and geopolitics. We will read and discuss 10 key texts and students will prepare an original project, paper or hybrid. Prereq: WAI Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.

Interactive Media Arts (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 8 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

INTM-SHU 297T-000 (20382)03/22/2021 – 05/14/2021 Fri9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at ShanghaiInstructed by Bratton, Benjamin Hugh

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2021

Resisting Dystopia (MCC-UE 1041)

A deep sense of a descending dystopian future has become more pronounced with the global pandemic, economic shutdowns, and the rise of extremism and authoritarianism. Scholars, novelists, journalists, filmmakers, and activists around the world have been writing and speaking about political systems and leadership classes incapable of addressing such issues for decades. Students explore dystopia through literature, film, and scholarly works, and examine strategies for resisting dystopia. Students participate in a social action project and create video projects.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

MCC-UE 1041-000 (23974)01/28/2021 – 05/10/2021 Wed2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Gary, Brett

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Spring 2021 Spring 2025

History of Computing: How the Computer Became Personal (MCC-UE 1171)

This course focuses on technological developments and cultural contexts relevant to understanding the development of digital computing technology. The course familiarizes students with the social forces and technocultural innovations that shaped the personal computing industry, and uses primary documents, academic history and critical theory to contextualize and problematize popular frameworks of technological progress and challenge narratives of computing’s inevitability.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2025)

MCC-UE 1171-000 (18059)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Wed2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Yates, Katie Lane

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2021

Big Ideas: Artificial Intelligence (CSCI-UA 74)

This course provides a high-level overview of the key ideas and technologies that lead to revolutionary changes in Artificial Intelligence and to the explosive growth in practical applications of AI. Taught by a team of NYU’s top experts in artificial intelligence lead by the Turing award winner Yann LeCun, the course will introduce students to a range of topics in fundamentals of AI and its key sub-areas including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision as well as its applications in different domains.

Computer Science (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

CSCI-UA 74-000 (22982)03/21/2021 – 05/10/2021 Tue6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Washington SquareInstructed by Lecun, Yann · Zorin, Denis

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Spring 2020 Spring 2021

Tackling Representation in Games (OART-UT 1618)

Identity and representation are two of the most pressing and complex issues for contemporary video games, that without recognizing them an artist or critic would be missing a large part of how games are important in culture. With growing art and activist communities, video games are diversifying and grappling with a wide range of topics rarely seen before in the genre, and with it a greater need for informed perspectives on the topic of how marginalized people are depicted in media. This course discusses foundational theories of identity and encourages students to contribute their own ideas towards the design and interpretation of representation in games.

Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

OART-UT 1618-000 (15424)01/28/2021 – 05/10/2021 Mon4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Brice, Mattie

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Fall 2020

Practice Research for Research Practice (ITPG-GT 2077)

In this course, students will be exposed to different qualitative research methodologies and disciplinary approaches to those methods (in terms of technique, ethical standards, approaches to citation, etc.). Students will practice using research methods to study subjects of their choosing and produce reflections, sketches, or prototypes based on weekly research findings. By practicing the act of “doing research” students will think about ways to incorporating research into their practice and better understand and articulate how research is already part of their practice.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)
Fall 2020

Imagination and Distributed Learning (ITPG-GT 2075)

When technology advances, teaching styles regress. Every new wave of technology touted as a boon to education — radio, TV, DVDs, the internet — has tended to revive the idea that the ideal class structure is the lecture, where faculty broadcast information to disconnected student recipients. Yet we’ve known for decades that lectures are poor ways to create learning experiences, and that actively involving students–with the class, the teacher, each other–is far more effective. The thesis of Imagination and Distributed Learning is that the range of possible experiences available online is larger, more varied, and more interesting than most of what is on offer from colleges and universities’ online courses. Students will read teaching and learning research, and do field work where they set out to learn something online and reflect on the experience, and then set out to teach something online, and reflect on that experience. The goal of the course will be for students to build up alternatives to existing (and often quite dull) online educational practices today. The final project will be a proposal, plus designs or partial implementation, for online tools or experiences that will create experiences users can learn from. These proposals will be presented to a panel of people managing existing online programs at NYU and elsewhere.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 11 Weeks

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)
Fall 2020 Fall 2021

Cybernetics of Sex: Technology, Feminisms, & the Choreography (ITPG-GT 2074)

What can cybernetics, the study of how we shape and are shaped by systems, teach us about the sexual and social reproduction of gender and sexism? How does sex become gender and what are the politics surrounding who gets reproduced? We will explore how social regulatory systems are encoded into technological platforms and disentangle how they produce social pressure and govern behavior through somatic exercises, discussion, and project making. In this class, we will not shy away from difficult conversations and work closely together to cultivate a space of openness and mutual support. Discussion and project-making is core to this class. Together we will read the work of scholars such as Donna Haraway, Ruha Benjamin, Paul Preciado, Silvia Federici, & Audre Lorde. Along with lecture, discussion, and in class activities, students will be encouraged to explore their own research interests and personal histories. When projects are discussed, we will practice communicating ideas through presentation as a medium and will co-create a culture of constructive feedback.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

ITPG-GT 2074-000 (23969)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Mon12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)
Fall 2020

Population Infinite:The Future of Identity (ITPG-GT 2041)

Course description (optional): We are currently living in a society that operates under the principle that one body equals one agent, one vantage point, one identity. But emerging technologies may create a future in which the notion of a single personal identity becomes outdated. That future includes: machine learning techniques that make emulating the style and behavior of other people fast and easy; widely available AR/VR headsets that get people to identify with however many faces and bodies they choose, instead of just those they were born with; cryptocurrencies enabling the use of pseudonymous economic identities to transact across the planet in a permissionless manner. This is a course where we will get to explore and anticipate the utopian and dystopian aspects of this weird future of identity.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2020)

ITPG-GT 2041-000 (22623)09/02/2020 – 10/14/2020 Wed6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Germanidis, Anastasios · Oved, Dan

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)
Fall 2020

Prediction as Planning: Wayfinding for Future Thinkers (ITPG-GT 2033)

In an age of pressing and complex problems like climate change, extreme inequality, and surveillance capitalism, “problem solving” is a central feature of innovation, design, and planning. But can these wicked problems actually be “solved”? And why does the cutting edge of problem solving look so limited? Machine learning. Predictive analytics. Algorithmic decision-making…Is planning for the future being outsourced to machines? In this class, we’ll take back control of the future by learning how it has historically been predicted, planned, and produced in board meetings, think tanks, writers’ rooms, and policy circles, and how those methods are being impacted by new technologies. During a series of discussions and hands-on workshops, we will learn specific, tangible, and collaborative practices for prediction and planning that can augment and transcend computational capabilities, making for marketable future-proof skills that can help redefine the future for humanity.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2020)

ITPG-GT 2033-000 (22634)10/22/2020 – 12/10/2020 Thu6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Shevin, Michelle

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)

Psychology of the Internet (STS-UY 2634)

This class investigates aspects of human behavior in terms of the Internet. The Internet is a technological phenomenon that allows people separated by huge distances to interact with each other in relatively seamless fashion. Does the Internet allow people to connect in ways never possible before? Or are these new connections variations of previous human interactions, only on a computer screen. For all of its positive attributes, the Internet has a negative side: People become increasingly dependent on interacting only through the Internet. Is this dysfunctional? What characterizes addictive behavior? Can addictive behavior be attributed to a physical action as opposed to a biological substance? | Prerequisites: EXPOS-UA 1 or EXPOS-UA 4. Notes: Satisfies a HuSS elective.

Science and Technology (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

STS-UY 2634-000 (5884)09/02/2025 – 12/11/2025 Mon,Wed2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Lewis, James

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Creativity and Innovation (STS-UY 2644)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

This course explores the nature of the creative act. What does it take to be creative? What are some of the cognitive and personality variables that aid and hinder creativity? What are the characteristics of great innovators? Is innovation purely individual? Or are innovators a product of their time? The course also surveys literature on teaching creativity and innovation. | Prerequisites: Completion of first year writing requirements. Co-requisites: None. Notes: Satisfies a HuSS elective.

Science and Technology (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Art & Design) IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2023

Computer Ethics (STS-UY 2524)

Using a case study approach, this course explores the issues of professional and technological ethics especially as it pertains to networked computers in a global setting. The course will begin with the appropriate ethical codes of the professional societies, including the code of ethics for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) but also codes in other areas such as finance and medicine. The mandates and expectations of the codes will be interpreted from varying perspectives and will be applied concretely to the specifics of the cases under consideration. Ethical issues will be approached in a manner similar to that of engineering problems and students will be expected to show a step-by-step process for the resolution of actual and potential ethical conflict. The technique of “line drawing” will be used to exhibit the alternatives and to help justify the ultimate decision made. In addition to video lectures Power Point charts, and notes the course teaching techniques will employ social media (“Google “) to create a class community, “NYU Classes” to present texts and case studies, built-in assessment tools to permit student dialogue and debate on assigned topics. These online tools do not demand excessive bandwidth and can be used in both synchronous and asynchronous settings.

Science and Technology (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2023)

STS-UY 2524-000 (16270)at ePolyInstructed by Silberman, Jared

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Ethics and Technology (STS-UY 2144)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
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Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu

Ethical expertise is integral to the careers and responsibilities of engineering and technology management professionals, from long-standing issues around professional responsibilities to society and more recent controversies such as “techlash” concerns about bias, equity, and surveillance. This survey course introduces undergraduate students to some of the most relevant ethical issues in engineering and the technology industry today. Students will begin by exploring basic ethical approaches from a variety of philosophical traditions and how these principles have historically been integrated into engineering professions. Then, students will study a variety of topics of high importance to engineers today, including ethics in computing, data, and automated systems; medical ethics, past and present; disability ethics and activism; ethical issues related to the environment and climate change; and ethical issues related to race and gender. | Notes: Satisfies a HuSS elective.

Science and Technology (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Spring 2026 Undergraduate