Fall 2021
COMS 616 (CRN 2798) (3 credits)
Staff-Student Colloquium 1
Prof. Jenny Burman
Tues, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
FERR 230
COMS 630 (CRN 2799) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 1
Advisor's approval required.
COMS 633 (CRN 2800) (3 credits)
Feminist Media Studies
Prof. Carrie Rentschler
Wed, 11:35 AM-2:25 PM
Arts W -5
What are the relationships between media and feminism? What are intersectional models of feminist media studies? What are the range of feminist analytic tools for studying power and agency across media practices and communication infrastructures? How do people use media to enact collective power? How are feminist, queer and trans* modes of agency and subjectivity formed within current cultures of technology? How are racialized systems reproduced and resisted via network technologies? What tactics are being used to queer and trans* technology and technologized bodies and lives, and toward what ends?
Feminist Media Studies is an evolving field. Current research de-centers white women and white feminism, considers gender identity more broadly, and critiques heteronormativity and, increasingly, cis-normativity. This course will focus on questions of technology, social networks, gaming, systems of surveillance, critical data studies, algorithmic culture, attention economies, and media activism, among others; we will consider representations and portrayals of people as secondary effects of these problematics. We will also examine feminist methods for analyzing media and technology, from feminist STS scholarship, trans and queer theory, and affect studies to maker/player pedagogies and emergent models of critique.
COMS 646 (CRN 2801) / EAST 560 (CRN 18362) (3 credits)
Popular Media
Prof. Yuriko Furuhata
Thurs, 11:35 PM-2:25 PM
FERR 230
COMS 683 (CRN 2802) (3 credits)
Special Topics in Media and Politics: Energy
Prof. Darin Barney
Fri, 11:35 AM-2:25 PM
LEA 210
This seminar will consider the cultural, political and environmental dimensions of energy, across its various elemental forms, and the infrastructures, media and relations by which it comes into being. The course will be informed by critical, historical, materialist and post-materialist approaches in the emerging fields of energy and environmental humanities, and will study the implication of energy and its mediations in the social reproduction of (racial) capitalism, (settler) colonialism and extractivism.
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COMS 692 (CRN 2803) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 1
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 693 (CRN 2804) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 2
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 694 (CRN 2805) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 3
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 695 (CRN 2806) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 4
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 702 (CRN 1545) (0 credits)
Comprehensive Exam
Comprehensive examination as per departmental procedure.
COMS 703 (CRN 1546) (0 credits)
Dissertation Proposal
Dissertation proposal.
COMS 730 (CRN 2807) (3 credits)
Readings in Communication Research 2
Supervisor's approval required.
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Winter 2022
COMS 611 (CRN 2260) (3 credits)
History/Theory/Technology
Topic: Critical Approaches to AI and Sound
Prof. Jonathan Sterne
Mon, 11:35 AM-02:25 PM
Arts W-220
Machine learning鈥攐ften branded as artificial intelligence or 鈥淎I鈥濃�� is an ever-expanding set of political and technological operations in our world today. Sometimes AI refers to a set of real technologies, sometimes a set of claims about technologies or industries, and sometimes a set of exploitative social relationships masquerading as automated technologies.
The last few years have seen an explosion in critical scholarship on AI, as well as a flowering of critiques within industry, in popular media, and among artists. While the first round of that work focused primarily on the processing of images and text, there is growing interest in the relationship between AI and sound, especially as it relates to speech and music. Our seminar will consider this intersection in depth.
We will read and discuss some of the new scholarship on AI in media studies and related fields, and then turn our attention to the politics of AI in the sonic domain. Our goal will be to break with the 鈥渃ommon sense鈥� of AI, especially as a 鈥済iven鈥� problem. Another goal is to demystify the technology and the cultural analysis of technology in general; to show students that they do not need advanced engineering degrees to produce sharp, precise, and politicized analyses of technological practices. How is AI like other kinds of computational or algorithmic cultural practices, and how is it different? How does AI relates to automation more generally? Does it raise genuinely new political or ethical questions, or is it just an extension of already existing antagonisms shaped by capitalism, racism, sexism, ableism, colonialism and other axes of power? Along the way, we will critically consider the work of corporations and researchers alongside that of artists, activists, and others who seek to build technology for people rather than technology for profit.
The reading load with be approximately three essays or a book per week (or the equivalent), and the seminar will be a mix of lectures and discussions. Students will have the opportunity to write or produce multimodal work applying course material to their areas of interest, and will be encouraged to meet with the professor during the course of the term. We may also have special guest stars.
COMS 630 (CRN 2261) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 1
Supervisor鈥檚 approval required
COMS 675 (CRN 2262) (3 credits)
Media and Urban Life
Prof. Will Straw
Fri, 8:35 AM-11:25 AM
Arts W-220
This course deals with a variety of ways in which we might think about the relationship of cities to media, art and culture. Cities 鈥渃ontain鈥� media, of course, but the relationship between the two goes beyond this. Cities are themselves media-like in the ways in which they process information, structure cultural expression and give material form to social history and memory. Likewise, as spaces marked by rhythms of activity and experience, interconnection and exchange, cities are fundamentally 鈥渃ultural鈥� in ways that go beyond those activities we normally designate as 鈥渃ulture. This course will look at the different ways in which cultural expression shapes the experience of urban life, and its role in struggles over identity, equity and democracy.
COMS 692 (CRN 2263) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 1
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 693 (CRN 1554) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 2
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 694 (CRN 2265) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 3
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 695 (CRN 1556) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 4
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 702 (CRN 1355) (0 credits)
Comprehensive Exam
Comprehensive examination as per departmental procedure.
COMS 703 (CRN 1381) (0 credits)
Dissertation Proposal
Dissertation proposal.
COMS 730 (CRN 2267) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 2
Supervisor's approval required.