Readings

Please read the following before the first class of the course:

• Jan Zalasiewicz, et al., “Scale and Diversity of the Physical Technosphere: A Geological Perspective” (2017) 
• Bill Brown, “Thing Theory” (2001) 

Readings

• Susan Leigh Star,  “The Ethnography of Infrastructure (1999)
• Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, “Building Information Infrastructures for Social Worlds: The Role of Classifications and Standards” (1998) 

Readings

• Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (1983) (Read the introduction)
• Bruno Latour, “On Technical Mediation—Philosophy, Sociology, Genealogy” (1994) 

Readings

• Lisa Parks, “‘Stuff You Can Kick’: Toward a Theory of Media Infrastructures” (2015)   (alternative link for downloadable PDF)
• Lisa Parks, “Earth Observation and Signal Territories: Studying U.S. Broadcast Infrastructure through Historical Network Maps, Google Earth, and Fieldwork” (2013)  
• Shannon Mattern, “Mission Control: A History of the Urban Dashboard” (2015)
• Lisa Gitelman, “Holding Electronic Networks By the Wrong End” (2013)
• Jer Thorp, “All the Names: Algorithmic Design and the 9/11 Memorial” (2011)

Readings

• Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation (2015) (Note: commonly called the “Xenofeminist Manifesto,” this work by the “Laboria Cuboniks” collective can also be downloaded from its site as .txt or .pdf. The work later appeared as a Verso book.)
• Lucy Suchman, “Reconfigurations” (chapter 15 in her Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions, 2nd ed., 2007, pp. 259-286) 

• “Feminism, Technology, and Systems 2: Infrastructure”
  Video Interview by Anne Balsamo of Lucy Suchman and Katherine Gibson (“J. K. Gibson-Graham”) (2013)

• Deb Verhoeven. “As Luck Would Have It: Serendipity and Solace in Digital Research Infrastructure” (2016) 

This class will be devoted to interim reports and discussion of the “Starter Kits for Infrastructure Studies” assignment (readings and exhibits assembled by students on infrastructure studies in relation to particular fields or topics). Students will also report on progress toward their research blog posts (or planning for the alternative essay assignment). These “interim reports” can be informal, but students  are welcome to prepare materials to show in advance (e.g., documents, online resources, slide shows). A convenient way for everyone to show things in class will be for students to bring their laptop and join a Zoom meeting the instructor will start. Students can then share their screens.

Readings

• Example of a “Starter Kit”: Event page for the Romanticism and Critical Infrastructure Studies Seminar at NASSR 2018 (browse the page)
• Case study of an infrastructure-studies reading in the Romanticism field: Miranda Burgess, “Transporting Frankenstein: Mary Shelley’s Mobile Figures” (2014) 

Readings

• Sheila Anderson, “What Are Research Infrastructures?” (2013) 
• Patrick Svensson, “Humanities Infrastructure,” chapter 4 in his Big Digital Humanities: Imagining a Meeting Place for the Humanities and the Digital (2014)
• James Smithies, “Toward a Systems Analysis of the Humanities” (chapter 5 in his The Digital Humanities and the Digital Modern, 2017) 
• Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, “Platform Studies: Frequently Questioned Answers” (2009)
• “Minimal Computing”
  • Alex Gil, “The User, the Learner and the Machines We Make” (2015)
  • Kim Brillante Knight, “Making Space: Feminist DH and a Room of One’s Own” (2017)

Readings

• Steven J. Jackson. “Rethinking Repair” (2014) 
• Jérôme Denis and David Pontille, “Material Ordering and the Care of Things” (2014)
• Thomas Fisher, “Fracture Critical” (2009)
• Michael Ezban, “The Trash Heap of History” (2012)
  (Note: Places Journal has a pop-up alert about cookies that makes its articles unusable in iOS Safari if you have “block cookies” turned on.)
• Rem Koolhaas. “Junkspace” (2002) 

Readings

• Muriel Rukeyser, The Book of the Dead (1938). (Background on: the poet | the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster)
• Pamela Lu, Ambient Parking Lot (2011), 1-35, 143-187.  (Optional: if you are interested in this novel, also read pp.  69-120 on “The Station Master”)
• Corrine Wasmuht

Student Presentations of Their “Starter Kits”

In presenting their “starter kits,” students should give an overview but also zoom in on one or two highlights.

A Note About Reading Materials For This Course

There is one book to purchase for the course (available at UCEN Bookstore):

Other materials are online. Paywalled articles can be accessed over the UCSB network (or from off-campus by using the campus Pulse VPN service). You can also try to find open-access versions of paywalled materials using the Unpaywall extension for the Chrome or Firefox browsers.