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ENGLISH 105-0 : Race and Technology: Being Human in the Post-Racial Era (Race and Technology: Being Human in the Post-Racial Era)

Description

While the primary focus of this course will be to improve academic writing, we will do so by asking questions regarding our evolving relationship with technology and whether it alters the ways in which “race”, ethnicity, and culture are performed in society. The primary focus is on the ideology of “race” as a social construction, and how might technological advances in social media, virtual reality, Siri, and Alexa change the way we collectively think about the world and our relationships within it? Does the emphasis in late capitalism on technological design have the power level playing fields and guide us into a post-racial society? Should technological design be working in the “best interest” of humanity? Should a post-racial society even be a goal that we should be aspiring to?

In this course, we will explore racial ideology as part and parcel of the broad American socio-cultural experience. We also aim to interweave experiences and research into a synthesis of the social construction of “race” as it evolves with modern technological advances. We will openly discuss and write about how technology affects the ways in which we think and interact with one another along these lines.