History of Media Technologies (489-0-1)

Instructors

Heather Hendershot

Meeting Info

McCormick Foundation Ctr 3107: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This course examines "old technologies" when they were "new" and asks how each new media technology develops in relationship to—and overlaps with—its predecessors. Such overlap is not only technological, industrial, and, often, regulatory in nature but also formal/aesthetic and social/cultural. Students will learn both how old prejudices and preconceptions—particularly regarding race, gender, class, and national identity—accompany new technologies such as the telegraph, film, radio, television, the phonograph, the telephone, and the smartphone, as well as how such prejudices and preconceptions are often amplified in the transition from "old" to "new." The class proceeds chronologically, bringing us up to the present, all the while questioning and avoiding a teleological, deterministic understanding of media change.