New Media Literacies

Culture and technology are rapidly coming closer together in ways that both extend and go beyond Adorno’s analysis of a “culture industry.” Marxist critical theory provided the foundation for the political analysis of culture and art from the mid- to late-20th century. It may be that today we need to broaden the language of the humanities to include informatics, big data, calculation, procedural rhetoric, protocol, interface, derivative wars, multimodal compositing, topology, interactivity, and the financialization of life. The aim is to focus more precise attention on contemporary discourses of everyday life, culture, and design in metropolitan hubs globally. At the same time, fundamental ethical questions, as well as new political issues, will be raised within the terms of these new literacies. We will begin with key writings of the Frankfurt School, then continue with critical essays by Luhman, Kittler, Deleuze, Foucault, Latour, Berardi, Martin, Hayles, Galloway, Manovich, Lury, Chow, Ang, Hansen, and Goodman.