Information State Across Ages
The Information State: from the Library of Alexandria to the Snowden Files How do states see and know the world? Our sources will shuttle back-and-forth between recent examples like the United States’ surveillance apparatus, and historical phenomena like the Inka khipu record-keeping system of knotted strings. We will see that administrators have long dreamt of ruling rationally through the collection and mobilization of data. Whether we are dominated by the ‘information state’ or live under ‘surveillance capitalism’ – some deeper context on the ways various institutions have used information as a means of control in the past can help us understand controversial phenomena today: from authentication and metadata to surveillance, searchability, and planned obsolescence.
The Information State: from the Library of Alexandria to the Snowden Files How do states see and know the world? Our sources will shuttle back-and-forth between recent examples like the United States’ surveillance apparatus, and historical phenomena like the Inka khipu record-keeping system of knotted strings. We will see that administrators have long dreamt of ruling rationally through the collection and mobilization of data. Whether we are dominated by the ‘information state’ or live under ‘surveillance capitalism’ – some deeper context on the ways various institutions have used information …Read more
The description of the class was really interesting, but I wouldn't say that there was much of a common thread throughout the semester. Although the individual things we covered were generally interesting, I didn't really know what I was meant to be gaining from the course overall.
Prof. Makleff is a great guy who really is passionate about this course. Also as an advisor he really tries his best to keep the best interests of his students in mind. The class falls pretty flat though, and is really not engaging. Every class feels a little disorganized without a clear lesson or meaning, or even anything building up to a greater understanding of a subject
I enjoyed this class, even though the topic did not interest me all that much. Professor Ron is very nice and accommodating and the grading is pretty easy. Class usually consists of discussing the readings we had for homework and then discussing new pieces.