This fall semester marks the first time in well over a decade that I have attempted to teach an undergraduate class that is exactly my research on what I fondly call “other networks.” I hope I’m able to model what it looks like to approach the history of technology playfully and creatively, drawing especially on a range of sources that aren’t always deemed ‘scholarly.’ You’re welcome to follow along!

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Class Description
Think of this class as a semester-long Luddite Club! Through reading primary and secondary sources as well as through hands-on experiments, we will playfully and creatively approach the history of technology as a rich source of alternative futures; in other words, we will look not only at what was but also what could be. What were these technologies that played such a pivotal role in the 20th century? What ways of living were embedded in these old technologies? How were these technologies used and mis-used, especially by artists? Who is often centered in historical narratives about these technologies and who is excluded? How might we recover these technologies and rewrite their histories for the 21st century? How might we use or mis-use these technologies today? What ways of living do we want to recover from these technologies for better futures?

Schedule
As you read, do so with an eye to learning the facts about these technologies you might not have known about before but also read with an eye to how each history has been constructed. For example:

• Look at how the piece as been written along with what they are writing about;
• How are the authors’ notions of history aligned with or fundamentally different than Benjamin’s or Foucault’s or Afrofuturism’s notions of history?
• Check out their sources and see who/what has been excluded–are these accounts missing technical details? what countries are centered and what countries are overlooked? who is centered and who is excluded and at what cost?
• What aspects of this technology should we recover for the present and the future?

Part I: Alternate Histories for Future Worlds
WEEK 1
Thursday August 20:

• Introductions

Tuesday August 25:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 1
• Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940)

WEEK 2
Thursday August 27

• IN-CLASS WRITING 2
• Walter Benjamin continued

Tuesday September 1:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 3
• Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse” (1970)

WEEK 3
Thursday September 3:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 4
• Michel Foucault continued

Tuesday September 8:

• CLASS ON ZOOM
• John Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History (1996)
• Sophia Samatar, “Toward a Planetary History of Afrofuturism”

Part II: Alternate Media Histories: Networks
WEEK 4
Thursday September 10:

• MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY LAB TOUR

Tuesday September 15:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 5
• DRUMS: “The Original of the Telephone” / Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (chapter 17) / Zulumathabo Zulu, “African Drum Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation”

WEEK 5
Thursday September 17:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 6
• WHISTLING: Julien Meyer, Whistled Languages (chapters 1-2, skim chapters 5-6)  / R.G. Busnel and A. Classe, Whistled Languages (skim chapter 7)

Tuesday September 22:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 7
• POSTAL SYSTEM: David Warburton, “Letters, Letter Writing, Pharaonic Egypt” / “Pigeon Post” / “E-COM” / Sarah Yager, “How the Most Remote Community in America Gets Its Mail” / “Tapesponding: A Long Lost Communication” / “Mail Art” / Chuck Welch, Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology (skim)

WEEK 6
Thursday September 24:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 8
• POSTAL SYSTEM CONTINUED

Tuesday September 29:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 9
• SEMAPHORE AND ELECTRICAL TELEGRAPH: “Hydraulic Telegraph” / “Antique Hydraulic Telegraph” / Russell W. Burns, “Semaphore Signalling” / “Semaphore” / Hannah Weiner, Signal Flag Poems (skim) / Anthony Huurdeman, “Optical Telegraphy” / Anthony Huurdeman, “Optical Telegraph Systems Worldwide” (skim) / Anthony Huurdeman, “Electrical Telegraphy” / John Fahie, A History of Electrical Telegraphy (skim)

WEEK 7
Thursday October 1:

• SHORT ESSAY 1 DUE
• SEMAPHORE AND ELECTRICAL TELEGRAPH CONTINUED

Tuesday October 6:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 10
• WIRELESS RADIO, RADIOTELEGRAPHY, TELEVISION: Anthony Huurdeman, “Radio Transmission” / John Fahie, A History of Wireless Telegraphy (skim) / Doron Galili, Seeing By Electricity: The Emergence of Television, 1878-1939 (introduction and chapter 1, skim chapters 2 and 3) / Lori Emerson, “Radio Networks (skim) / Kristen Haring, “How to Knit a Popular History of Radio” (skim) / Anna Friz radio works (skim) / “Radio Amatrices” (skim)

WEEK 8
Thursday October 8:

• READING DAY / NO CLASS

Tuesday October 13:

• DORON GALILI GUEST LECTURE ON ZOOM
• WIRELESS RADIO, RADIOTELEGRAPHY, TELEVISION CONTINUED

WEEK 9
Thursday October 15:

• NO CLASS

Tuesday October 20:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 11
• WIRELESS RADIO, RADIOTELEGRAPHY, TELEVISION CONTINUED

WEEK 10
Thursday October 22:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 12
• TELEPHONE: Anthony Huurdeman, “Telephony” / “The Telephone and How We Use It” / Lori Emerson, “Barbed Wire Fence Phone” / “The ‘Telharmonium’ or ‘Dynamophone’” /  John Giorno, “Dial-a-Poem” / “Phone Phreaking“

Tuesday October 27:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 13
• TELEPHONE CONTINUED

WEEK 11
Thursday October 29:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 14
• MICROWAVE: Lori Emerson, “Microwave Networks” / “Electronic Café” / Liza Béar, “Send/Receive Satellite Network” / Bill Fontana, “Landscape Soundings” / Matthias Hurtl, “Drowning in Aether“

Tuesday November 3:

• SHORT ESSAY 2 DUE
• MICROWAVE CONTINUED

WEEK 12
Thursday November 5:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 15
• SNEAKERNET: “Sneakernet” / Eileen Guo, “Afghanistan’s Real Internet” / Clive Thompson, “Inside Cuba’s Massive, Weekly, Human-Curated Sneakernet”

Tuesday November 10:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 16
• IMAGINARY NETWORKS: “Sympathetic Snail Compass” / Ivy Roberts, “‘Edison’s Telephonoscope’: The Visual Telephone and the Satire of Electric Light Mania” / Corinne Iozzio, “Scientists Prove that Telepathic Communication is Within Reach” / “Mundaneum” / W. Boyd Rayward, “H.G. Wells’ Idea of a World Brain” / Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think” / “Project Xanadu“

WEEK 13
Thursday November 12:

• IN-CLASS WRITING 17
• IMAGINARY NETWORKS CONTINUED

Tuesday November 17:

• IN-CLASS GROUP PROJECT WORK

WEEK 14
Thursday November 19:

• IN-CLASS GROUP PROJECT WORK

Tuesday November 24:

• FALL BREAK / NO CLASS

WEEK 15
Thursday November 26:

• FALL BREAK / NO CLASS

Tuesday December 1:

• GROUP PROJECT PRESENTATIONS

WEEK 16
Thursday December 3:

GROUP PROJECT PRESENTATIONS