Technology and Power in American History

In this course we will consider how technological artifacts and systems have constituted, mediated, and reproduced relationships of power with a particular attention to hierarchies of race, gender, class, and nation. We will examine the relationships between humans and technologies within the context of globalization from early colonial America through the 21st century. We will consider a variety of technologies and social settings such as guns, slave ships, plantations, factories, prisons, physical and virtual border fences, computers, mobile phones, human bodies, and reproduction. We will ask whether technology has produced a better America, and for whom. 3 hrs. sem.