SOCI 220 - Post-Human Sociology

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

In recent decades the terms “post-human” and posthumanism” have circulated in many disciplines, connoting a range of different intellectual projects including: criticism of the nature/culture divide; response to technological developments in genetics, computing, robotics, and other fields; disentangling the presupposed superiority of “the human” from colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems. Far from rejecting the category of the human or advocating something “after” the human (as “post-” might suggest), posthumanism is rather a mode of inquiry that deepens our understanding of human communication, meaning-making, and society by decentering the human while expanding the scope of our analysis of human interaction to include non-human animals, networked technology and AI, the built environment, or even the Earth itself. In this course, we explore a range of case studies to ask questions such as: What might post-human sociology entail (in terms of content, theory, or method)? What are the strengths and limitations of such an approach in social science? How might decentering the human change the political stakes of sociology as well as movements for social justice, equality, and human dignity? Along the way we examine topics such as companion species and nuisance species; genetic engineering; robotics and artificial intelligence; algorithms and internet bots among others. In addition to classic texts by Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, we also read works by Jane Bennett, Kate Crawford, Kathryn Harden, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Colin Jerolmack, Frank Pasquale, Kalinidi Vora and others. John Andrews.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS