Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

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FYSE1067A-F23

Information State Across Ages

The Information State: from the Library of Alexandria to the Snowden Files
How do states see and know the world? Our sources will shuttle back-and-forth between recent examples like the United States’ surveillance apparatus, and historical phenomena like the Inka khipu record-keeping system of knotted strings. We will see that administrators have long dreamt of ruling rationally through the collection and mobilization of data. Whether we are dominated by the ‘information state’ or live under ‘surveillance capitalism’ – some deeper context on the ways various institutions have used information as a means of control in the past can help us understand controversial phenomena today: from authentication and metadata to surveillance, searchability, and planned obsolescence.
Course Reference Number (CRN):
92784
Subject Code:
FYSE
Course Number:
1067
Section Identifier:
A

Course

FYSE 1067

All Sections in Fall 2023

Fall 2023

FYSE1067A-F23 Seminar (Makleff)