Evil Media
Media as trickery, deception and manipulation: corporate gray media, hostile architecture and deceptive design. This course asks what it means to rethink “Don’t be evil” in an age of ubiquitous computing.
Feminist Surveillance Studies
Intersectional feminist inquiries into transparency and access. From the gaze and the body to mapping and games, we explore how contestation and intervention can be mobilized against systems of visibility.
Cyberpunk
The femme fatale, queer cyborg, afro-futurist rockers, techno-orientalist servicebots, holographic celebrities, slum-dwelling underclass, synthetic transhuman enhancements, chemical addictions, mega-cities, exclusion zones, secretive military projects, nihilist deathcults, and techno-gods religions.
No Future: Optimism and Pessimism in Theory
Network pessimism versus accelerationism, queer anti‑social thesis versus utopian worldbuilding, afro‑pessimism versus black fugitivity. Each pairing exposes how different traditions imagine worlds to come—or their end.
Another End of the World Is Possible
Abolition, destruction, extinction and ruination intersect with media theories of time, subjectivity and politics. We ask how endings can open up new orientations in theory and practice.
Contemporary Political Thought (MAP Core)
What would Herbert Marcuse teach? Mining radical politics for concepts that unsettle and transgress. Units cover institutions/intersections/insurrections and abolition/anarchism/anti‑capitalism.
Contemporary Aesthetic Theory (MAP Core)
How institutions, mediums, and technologies shape our understanding of what art, sentiment, and experience are and can be. Topics include Necroaesthetics, Memeaesthetics, The Future of the Book, Camp, Institutional Critique, and more.