The Information Age STSC 160 Fall 2007 Certain new technologies are greeted with claims that, for good or ill, they must transform our society. The two most recent: the computer and the Internet. But the series of social, economic, and technological developments that underlie what is often called the Information Revolution include much more than just the computer. In this course, we examine what made this series of developments seem so revolutionary, who said what about them, and why. We chart changing perceptions of information technologies as people begin to experience them as a part of everyday life and work. We will explore both the technologies themselves as well as their larger social, economic, and political context.these perspectives will inform our discussion of current issues such as life and censorship in cyberspace. Professor Nathan L. Ensmenger nathanen@sas.upenn.edu
STSC 160 : The Information Age Professor Nathan L. Ensmenger Office Hours: M-W, 2-4 pm, 362 Logan Hall nathanen@sas.upenn.edu Course Format: The course meets for lecture on Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 1-2 PM and on Friday for recitation section. Attendance is mandatory: if you do need to miss class please let me or your TA know in advance. Grading will be based on four components: class participation (20%), three short assignments (25%), a mid-term exam (25%), and a final (30%). Your class participation grade will be based on attendance, active participation in the recitation section discussions, and your ability to produce insightful discussion questions based on the course readings. The short assignments are described in greater detail below. Required : The bulkpack for this course is available at Wharton Reprographics. There is only one book required: John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (2000). It is available at the Penn Bookstore. Course Schedule: I II Introduction The Information Age : Headrick, Daniel. When Information Came of Age: Technologies and Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850, Chp. 1 Information and its History, pp. 3 14. Cook, Scott D.N. Technological Revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth. In Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors, edited by Mark Stefik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. Information Explosion Gutenberg to Galileo No Class No Sections. Short assignment #1 due. John, Richard. Recasting the Information Infrastructure for the Industrial Age. In A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, edited by Alfred Chandler and James
Cortada. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. III IV V VI Faster than Thought The Annihilation of Time & Space What Hath God Wrought? Douglas, Susan. Popular Culture and Populist Technology, in Inventing American Broadcasting (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Cohen, Lizabeth. Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots: The Experience of Chicago Workers in the 1920s. American Quarterly 41 (Mar 1989): 6-33. When Computers were Human Industrializing Information Information Factories Campbell-Kelly, Martin. The Railway Clearing House. In Information Acumen: The Understanding and Use of Knowledge in Modern Business, edited by Lisa Bud- Frierman, pp. 51 74. Croarken, Mary. Tabulating the Heavens: Computing the Nautical Almanac in 18th- Century England, Annals of the History of Computing 25:3 (2003), pp. 48 61. War Machines Giant Brains Build Your Own Computer (Assignment #2 Due) United States Army. Press Release: Ordinance Department Develops All-Electronic Calculating Machine (February 15, 1946). Edwards, Paul. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (1996), Chp. 2 Why Build Computers? The Military Role in Computer Research, pp. 43-73. Evolution & Revolution A New Industry? IBM & the Seven Dwarves Aspray, William and Martin Campbell-Kelly. Computer: A History of the Information Machine (1996), Chapters 4,5,6.
VII Computers, Codes & DNA Cybernetic Visionaries: Turing and von Neumann Artificial Brains, Artificial Life Mid-Term Exam VIII Silicon Valley 1.0 IX X No class (Fall Break) East Coast, West Coast Leslie, Stuart and Robert Kargon. Selling Silicon Valley: Frederick Terman s Model for Regional Advantage Business History Review 70 (1996), pp.435 472. Triumph of the Nerds Documentary The Origins of the PC From Hippies to Hackers Apple, IBM, Microsoft Turkle, Sherry. Hackers: Loving the Machine for Itself from The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit(Simon & Schuster, 1984). Cringely, Robert X. Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can t Get a Date. (1992). Chapters 7-8, pp. 119 181. The PC Goes Mainstream But just what is it good for, exactly? Videotext to Videogames No Assignment #3 Due XI You Say You Want a Revolution...? The Revolution Will Be Televised From ARPAnet to Internet Bush, Vannevar. As We May Think Atlantic Monthly July, 1945. De Lacy, Justine. The Sexy Computer. In Computers in the Human Context, edited by Tom Forrester. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. Abbate, Janet. Inventing the Internet (MIT Press 2000), Chapters 1-4. XII Digital Utopias Electronic Frontiers, Information Societies Virtual Communities Thanksgiving Break Begin reading chapters 1,2 of Brown/Daguid on plane/train/automobile.
XIII The Glorious Information Revolution Digital Divides, Information Overloads Free as in Speech, Free as in Beer Winner, Langdon. Mythinformation, from The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (1986), pp. 98 117. Selected readings on digital divide and open source movement. XIV The Social Life of Information Knowledge: Code: Architectures Big Finish Anti-climax (review session) Seely Brown, John and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (2000).