Running questions & readings, updated as we go.
Read for today: Jürgen Habermas, “Technology and Science as ‘Ideology’” (1968), pp. 81–100, stopping at “Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century.”
Habermas’s reply to Marcuse; work and interaction; legitimation from above and from below. For Wednesday: Habermas, pp. 100–122.
Read for today: Jürgen Habermas, “Technology and Science as ‘Ideology’”, pp. 100–122, from “Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century” to the end.
State-regulated capitalism; science as the leading productive force; depoliticization. For Friday: Feenberg, ch. 4.
Read for today: Andrew Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology, ch. 4, “The Bias of Technology”, pp. 65–90.
Means and ends; Marcuse and Foucault; the technical code.
Read for today: Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, ch. 15, “Machinery and Modern Industry”, sections 1–4.
Your Week 8 blog post on the Manifesto is due today.
Tool and machine; the worker as appendage; intensification of labor. For Wednesday: Harvey, ch. 7.
Read for today: David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, ch. 7, “What Technology Reveals”, pp. 189–212.
Optional: Harvey’s lectures on chapter 15, part 1 and part 2 (video, 2019).
Marx’s fourth footnote in chapter 15 and its six elements. For Friday: Marcuse.
Read for today: Herbert Marcuse, “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology” (1941), pp. 63–79.
Individualistic and technological rationality; efficiency and compliance. For Monday: Habermas, pp. 81–100.
Fall break. No class.
No new reading. Be ready to report on your mini-project.
For Friday: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, sections I and II. We won’t meet Friday.
Read for today: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, sections I (“Bourgeois and Proletarians”) and II (“Proletarians and Communists”).
No class today; I’m at a conference in Richmond. Write the Week 8 blog post on the Manifesto, due Monday, Oct. 19. For Monday: Marx, Capital, vol. 1, ch. 15, “Machinery and Modern Industry”, sections 1–4.
Read for today: Kashmir Hill, “She Is in Love With ChatGPT,” New York Times, Jan. 15, 2025.
Alongside: Weathergirl, “What my AI boyfriend is, and what he is not” (Medium, 2026).
Frankfurt, continued. For Wednesday: the Nguyen interview, Marcuse, and Adorno.
Watch for today: “‘Value capture’: Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen on what games are doing to us” (interview).
Read for today: Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, ch. 1, “The New Forms of Control,” pp. 3–14, and ch. 3, “The Conquest of the Unhappy Consciousness: Repressive Desublimation,” pp. 74–86.
Also: Theodor W. Adorno, “Free Time”, in The Culture Industry, pp. 187–197.
For Friday: Deleuze.
Read for today: Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, October 59 (1992).
Read for today: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, pp. 6–17 and 30–33.
Fort/da, the compulsion to repeat, the death drive. For Wednesday: McGowan, pp. 26–36, and Xiao et al.
Read for today: Todd McGowan, Capitalism and Desire, “Losing What Was Already Gone”, pp. 26–36.
Alongside: Xiao et al., “The Addictive Intimacy of AI”.
Lack, the lost object, leaving and returning. For Friday: Frankfurt.
Inger Logan and Avi Saraf. 4:00 pm, Weatherly Wing, Seacobeck Hall. CAiLA events.
Read for today: Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”.
First- and second-order desires.
Mini-Project 1 — Heidegger and Your Technology is due Sunday, Sept. 20, 11:59 pm. Submit your link on Canvas.
Read for today: Richard Seymour, The Twittering Machine, “We Are All Addicts,” first half.
For Wednesday: finish the Seymour chapter, and read the Schüll (pp. 1–2 and chapter 6).
Read for today: Seymour, “We Are All Addicts,” second half.
Alongside: Natasha Dow Schüll, Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, pp. 1–2 (Mollie and the “machine zone”) and chapter 6, “Perfect Contingency: From Control to Compulsion,” pp. 166–182.
Flow, perfect contingency, the zone. For Friday: Shen and Yoon.
Read for today: Shen and Yoon, “The Dark Addiction Patterns of Current AI Chatbot Interfaces” (CHI EA ’25).
Also: Charles Bukowski, “so you want to be a writer?”
Reward uncertainty, streaming text, agreeable answers. For Monday: Freud, pp. 6–17 and 30–33.
Read for today: Kate Soper, What Is Nature?, Chapter 2.
Nature and artifice—what the word “natural” is doing. Keep the Rhine in mind: is the dammed river less “natural” than the one Hölderlin wrote about, and what would it mean to say so? If you want a mini-project form that isn’t on the list, today is the last day to run it by me. For Wednesday: no new reading. Come ready to talk through the mini-project idea from your Week 3 post and the Soper piece.
No new reading. Have QCT and your Week 3 post with you.
| Rank | Topic | Count | % (N = 23) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Conspiracy theories and disinformation | 15 | 65.2% |
| 2 | Surveillance — who’s watching, and whether “nothing to hide” holds up | 14 | 60.9% |
| 3 | Attention and the feed — why the internet feels the way it does | 13 | 56.5% |
| 4 | Algorithms and race — how a system with no opinions ends up with opinions | 11 | 47.8% |
| 5 | Climate, energy, and people who don’t exist yet | 10 | 43.5% |
| 6 | Bodies — enhancement, cyborgs, bio-hacking | 7 | 30.4% |
| 7 | AI and work — automation, jobs, money | 6 | 26.1% |
| 8 | Engineering life — GM food, modified animals | 5 | 21.7% |
| 8 | AI and writing — what writing is for now | 5 | 21.7% |
| 10 | AI and the value of art | 1 | 4.3% |
| 10 | AI and anthropomorphism / bot relationships | 1 | 4.3% |
We'll work through issues on mini-projects, lingering questions about Heidegger, and how it relates to nature.
No reading due. Mini-Project 1 is due Sunday, Sept. 20, 11:59 pm.
We can talk through Heidegger, Soper, and we finish the round on your mini-project ideas. Then the opening survey results, which I’ll post before class. We’ll use them, along with your blog posts, to choose and order at least Unit II. The candidate list is on the syllabus. If you want a topic that isn’t on it, come ready to argue for it.
Read for today: QCT, pp. 25–28 — Freedom, Enframing.
Be sure to get in your second blog posts. Also watch for links to patmos and an assignment sheet for the first mini-project.
For Friday: QCT, pp. 28–35.
Read for today: QCT, pp. 28–35. Danger, Holderlin, Patmos, Scott Horton, translator also see the James Mitchell translation and notes
Mini-Project 1 — Heidegger and Your Technology is posted. Due Sunday, Sept. 20, 11:59 pm. Replies to your colleagues’ Week 2 posts are due today, and your Week 3 blog post, a write-up of your mini-project idea, is due Sunday, Sept. 13. See prompts.
For Monday: Kate Soper, What Is Nature, Chapter 2
Read for today: QCT, pp. 6–12 — the four causes through bringing-forth (poiesis).
Causality, the silver chalice, and techne. If you have not already, submit your blog url to the Blog Syndication Form. Some blogs are already up on Student Feeds; I will add the rest as the urls come in. For Wednesday: QCT, pp. 12–18.
Read for today: QCT, pp. 12–18 — techne and revealing, challenging-forth, the Rhine (p. 16), standing-reserve.
Alongside: Hölderlin, “The Rhine” · the Rhine at record low water (New York Times, August 6, 2026).
The windmill and the hydroelectric plant. Standing reserve (Bestand). For Friday: QCT, pp. 19–25.
Read for today: QCT, pp. 19–25 — Enframing (Gestell).
Also note that you should reply to your colleagues' by Friday. See prompts
Read in class: Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950)
Syllabus walk-through, then we read Bradbury together, write on it for a few minutes, and start the opening survey (eight questions, due Fri 8/28). Nothing to prepare beforehand. For Wednesday: Dusek, “What Is Technology?”
So, 1. Bring your Computer 2. Look through the UMW Domain of One's Own Site before class. Sites is probably the best choice for most students. It's easier to get up and running quickly.
Read for today: Val Dusek, “What Is Technology?”
Three definitions of technology, and a Domain of One’s Own walk-through. For Friday: Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, pp. 3–6.
Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, pp. 3–6.
Once you have your blog up, submit the url to the Blog Syndication Form
Also, reminder: FIlL oUt ThE SurVeY on interests