In this course students will

(1)  Engage with political, social and ethical arguments about the datafication of human life;

(2)  Explore cultures of quantification in an interdisciplinary framework, blending history, art, and technology;

(3) Acquire critical data literacy skills (visualization, mapping, storytelling) to collect, analyze and reuse data about the self;

(4)   Learn basic aspects of digital production (data formats, simple customization, code, web development, etc.);

(5)  Learn about the rapidly evolving landscape of sensors and wearable/portable technologies;Practice effective communication skills in a regular written research blog, in addition to oral presentation format.

Course Expectations

The class will require you to be hands on about your learning. There will be lectures, recorded and online tutorials as well as guided exercises. There will also be discussion of readings and written responses to them. In discussion and writing you will have the opportunity to share critical ideas and opinions about the material, as well as the opportunity to learn some new ways of synthesizing and responding to research and presenting it to others.

Over the semester we will try out different digital environments–from the easy to the less easy–to explore data, how we might create and analyze it. We will not be building everything from scratch--that would not give us time to do everything that we do in a colloquium--but rather experimenting with different forms of data creation, manipulation, visualization and storytelling.

Creating a site. Work in this course is paperless and will be done in an individual course site (such as this syllabus) created in Google Sites which you will design and maintain. If you have another preferred mode of web publishing, please consult the instructor.

Responding in writing. There will be regular written responses, engaging with the subject material. They will be spaced across the semester. These will be done in your site and are expected to contain visual content.

Engaging with technology and writing about it. There are assignments in the course which require you to engage with specific technologies, to produce some "results" and to evaluate both the process and the results critically & creatively in writing.

Exploring "data of the self". There are assignments where you will be using datasets which have already been built and are available to you. There are also assignments where you will design and collect your own datasets. Since these will form some of the stories you tell, you will be encouraged only to create data you want to be shared.

Trying out data storytelling. There is a final project focused on sound and how we perceive its presence in our lives. The class will design and build a common dataset and will use it for the purpose of storytelling using a StoryMap. You will not only analyze the contents of the dataset, but will also critically examining how our diversity affects the kinds of data we collect and the ways we see the world.

Engaging with artists and data practitioners. We will explore how critical thought about data can involve artistic expression, advocacy or other forms of public engagement.