COM 528 - Communication, Culture and Technology

Speculative prototypes for equitable futures

April 20th, from 6:00pm to 8:45pm at the Visualization Gallery, Hill Library

Instructor: Dr. Fernanda Duarte

Join our graduate students in envisioning alternative visions of technological futures. Featuring work by:

Alex Haire, MSc in Communication: G-END, an implantable chip that interrogates gender expression and body surveillance.

Brian Chesanek, MSc in Communication: A vision for a plant-based future.

Claire Heins, MSc in Communication: Girl Up, an analysis of chatbots combating female genital mutilation.

Gabby Rodgers, MSc in Communication: OOMAN, an educational app to promote health care and well-being for Black Women.

Jaekuk Lee, PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media: Designing a digital font for marginalized groups

Kendall Edwards, MA Liberal Studies: An analysis of community-building on Twitch: live streaming, parasocial relationships, and restorative play

Michelle Yu, MSc in Communication: Cosplay out-of-the-box, a critical making experiment to interrogate authenticity and value in cosplay representation and performance.

Scott Taylor, MA Liberal Studies: INC Stats: Wearable Technology for Inclusive Sports Participation.

Sugantha Ramachandran, MSc in Communication: Accessible reproductive health education; envisioning alternatives for period trackers.

Course Description

Grounded in interdisciplinary takes on cultural studies, media arts, and technology studies, this course addresses how the relationship between communication, culture, and technology has been understood and theorized, and how those understandings are being challenged by and rearticulated in the contemporary cultural conjuncture. We privilege perspectives that deal with marginal, creative, and subversive appropriations of media technologies. Technologies are the materialization of ways to produce knowledge, in ways that are normative and also disruptive. As we debate technocultural issues, we must engage our own response-abilities as scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and assess how our own actions (and research) shape reality.