Course Schedule#
Week #1: What is a computer?
Matt Richtel. “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Increasingly, Coding.” New York Times, May 10, 2014.
The Most Reverend Paul Tighe, “Catholic Social Teaching in the Digital Age,” Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (January 26-27, 2017).
Week #2: How do computers understand information?
Mar Hicks, “When Did the Fire Start?” in Your Computer Is On Fire (MIT Press, 2021): 11-25.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching” UCCSB (n.d.)
Week #3: How did we get computers? How do computers “work”? (part 1: the computer as a data processing machine)
Michael S. Mahoney. “The Histories of Computing(s).” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol. 30, no. 2 (June 2005): 119–135. doi.org/10.1179/030801805X25927
Week #4: How did we get computers? How do computers “work”? (part 2: operating systems & interfaces)
Tara McPherson, “U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX” in Race After the Internet (Routledge, 2013): 21-37.
Week #5: How do computers talk to each other? What “is” the internet?
Marisa Elena Duarte, “Network Sovereignty: Broadband and the Rights of Tribes” in Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet Across Indian Country (University of Washington Press, 2017): 104-121
Benjamin Peters, “A Network is not a Network” in Your Computer Is On Fire (MIT Press, 2021): 71-90.
Week #6: How do we access information online?
Code.org, “The Internet: How Search Works” YouTube (13 June 2017)
Safiya Umoja Noble, “Introduction: The Power of Algorithms” from Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism* (New York University Press, 2018): 1-14.
Week #7: What “is” code/coding? What is a programming “language”?
Paul Ford, “What Is Code?” Bloomberg (11 June 2015)
Clive Thompson. “The Secret History of Women in Coding.” New York Times Magazine (13 February 2019)
Week #8: How did we “get” programming languages?
Nathan Ensmenger. “Chapter 3: Chess Players, Music Lovers, and Mathematicians.” In The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010): 51-82
r/learnprogramming, “Is programming creative?” Reddit (2017)
Week #10: What can programming languages “do”?
Nathan Ensmenger. “Chapter 5: The Rise of Computer Science.” In The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010): 111-136
Week #11: How are programming languages used?
Virginia Eubanks, “Introduction” and “Chapter 2, Automating Eligibility in the Heartland” from Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (St. Martin’s, 2017)
Week #12: But what about data?
Jer Thorp, “Chapter 1, Living in Data” from Living in Data: A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Information Future (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021): 11-36
Week #13: But what about AI?
Sections from Pope Francis, “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home” papal encyclical (24 May 2015)
Karen Hao, AI Colonialism Series, MIT Technology Review (April 2022)
Week #14: Where do we go from here?
Sheila Bonde, Paul Firenze, et al, “Making Choices: A Framework for Making Ethical Decisions” Brown University Science & Technology Studies (May 2013)
See also: Markula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” (last revised 8 November 2021)
Explore:
Design Justice Network Principles (last updated summer 2018)
Association for Computing Machinery Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct (2018)
Week #15: Deliberative Tech & Peacebuilding
Lisa Schirch, Defending Democracy With Deliberative Technologies (Keough School Policy Brief Series, 2024). https://doi.org/10.7274/25338103
BBC Click, “Can Taiwan Reboot Democracy?” YouTube (29 October 2019) 8 minutes
Pope Francis, “Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter” message for 48th world communications day (1 June 2014)