Prospectus

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Law, Cinema, Technology

Course
2024-2025

Admission requirements

Not applicable.

Description

Technology has invaded all domains of our private and public lives, often complicating key categories that we use to speak about law, politics and ethics, such as responsibility, territory, the integrity of the body and privacy. In this course we will study recent phenomena, such as predictive policing, drone warfare, digital surveillance, medical technologies and judicial decision-making processes. We will discuss their implications for our understanding of justice, politics and the law in a series of sessions in which we read excerpts from current political discussions, theoretical and philosophical texts, as well as a selection of recent films that revolve around questions of technology. The assumption behind the course is that cinema can broach questions about the moral, legal and political implications of technology in new ways that sometimes challenge our received ways of understanding and invite us to rethink things that we have taken for granted.

Readings include essays by Antoinetta Rouvroy, Mireille Hildebrandt, Bernard Stiegler, Grégoire Chamayou, Alexander Galloway. Films include Minority Report, V for Vendetta, The Children Act, Eye in the Sky, as well as documentaries by Adam Curtis and experimental videos of Hito Steyerl and Eyal Weizman.

Students are required to give an oral presentation on course materials and to write a blog or to create a video essay or podcast on a topical contemporary issue of their choice.

Course objectives

After completing this course students:

  • have gained insight in recent debates about technology, politics and the law

  • understand key concepts used in contemporary theoretical and philosophical debates about technology

  • are able to analyze fiction films, documentaries and experimental video’s and to reflect on the larger issues that they (implicitly) raise

  • are able to apply their knowledge to current affairs and cultural texts

  • have developed their ability to reflect on the aforementioned issues in oral presentations, and in writing or / and video.

Timetable

The timetables are available through MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

Seminar

Assessment method

Assessment

  1. Participation
  2. Oral presentation
  3. Blog or Video Essay

Weighing

Partcipation (10%); Oral presentation (20%); Blog or Video Essay (70%)

Resit

Blog or Video Essay (70%)

Inspection and feedback

Students will receive written feedback on their work.

Reading list

All literature will be made available through Brightspace.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange

  • Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

  • Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

  • For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal.

Remarks

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