This course introduces students to the various ways scholars have discussed the “digital” and its associated phenomena, including computability, information, algorithms, and networks. Drawing on classic and contemporary texts in philosophy, political economy, and media studies, we will investigate how the categories of race, class, gender, and labor are necessary to any analysis involving the production of digital technologies. If algorithms, data, and the circulation of information help constitute the digital, what kinds of work are necessary? Who does the work? We will keep these questions in mind as we clarify and critique the ways that the digital has been defined. We will take note of our different interpretations and how our various definitions of the digital change over the course of the semester.
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