Admission requirements
Only the following categories of students can register for this course:
Students enrolled for the BA programme “Culturele antropologie en ontwikkelingssociologie” at Leiden University who have passed the Propedeuse
Exchange and Study Abroad students
Please see the registration procedure below.
Description
In this course we critically investigate the encroaching notion that ‘we’ live in an ‘information society.’ Some of the questions that we will concern ourselves with: What are the social, material and ideological foundations that support the notion that ‘we’ live in the information society? What is this obsession with ‘information’? How is the information society lived in different regions of the world? How do people across the world construct their notions of ‘truth’ in the information society and what kind of truths carry the farthest? What does it mean to be politically active in the information society? And what does it mean to conduct anthropological research in and of ‘the information society’? We will look at a wide variety of information-society related phenomena, varying from ‘transhumanism’ to ICT4D projects; from privacy-activist groups to technophobes, from high-tech spirituality to e-waste.
Course objectives
students will be able to partake in critical discussions regarding the political, cultural and economic factors that govern the global dispersion of information technologies;
they will develop some ‘hands-on’ skills regarding hardware and software, they familiarize themselves with the practice of doing ‘online ethnography’, and will become aware of the kinds of political choices we implicitly make by using particular types of information technologies;
they will familiarize themselves with recent critical debates regarding the ‘information society’ and learn to identify the various ideological and political purposes to which ICT is put to use by differently-positioned groups around the world.
Time table
Thursdays 8 September – 10 November 2011, 10-13 h
Location: Pieter de la Court Building, room 1A11
Methods of instruction
Total 10 ECTS = 280 study hours (sbu):
Lectures 10×3 h = 30 sbu
Student presentations (werkgroepen) 12 hrs = 24 sbu
Study of literature (+/- 1000 pp) and weekly assignments about it (AQCI’s) = 170 sbu
Final paper 6 pp (3600 words) = 48 sbu
Assessment method
Weekly AQCI assignments (1 page per week)
Participation in discussions
One in-class presentation per student
Presence in class (at least 8 out of 10 sessions should be attended)
Final paper (6 pages = 3600 words)
Blackboard
Blackboard module will be active from the 25 August and will be used for posting assignments and other course related information.
Students who have been granted admission must register for this course on Blackboard.
Reading list
Nayar, P.K. (Ed.). (2010) The New Media and Cyberculture Anthology. West-Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell (can be ordered through study association Itiwana)
Recent and relevant journal articles, made available electronically through the University Library (400 pp)
Registration
Studenten CA-OS: inschrijving mogelijk via het secretariaat CA-OS, kamer 3A19, tel. 5273469, e-mail: secrcaos@fsw.leidenuniv.nl, tussen 1 juli en 20 augustus 2011.
Exchange and Study Abroad students, please see the Study in Leiden website for information on how to apply for the exchange programme
Contact information
Dorien Zandbergen: zandbergenad@fsw.leidenuniv.nl