Social History of Computing and the Internet

  • Teaching

    Details

    Faculty Faculty of Humanities
    Domain Interdisciplinary
    Code UE-L26.00211
    Languages English
    Type of lesson Lecture
    Level Master
    Semester AS-2025

    Schedules and rooms

    Summary schedule Thursday 15:15 - 17:00, Hebdomadaire, PER 21, Room C130 (Autumn semester)

    Teaching

    Responsibles
    • Bozzini David Manuel
    Teachers
    • Bozzini David Manuel
    Description

    This lecture examines the history of digital technologies to highlight the social and cultural orders producing them. We explore various assemblages and configurations of social groups with digital technologies starting with the early history of computing, the emergence of computer networks and the Internet, the sociocultural and gendered organization of digital labor, the politics of platfomization and datafication and the governance and management of cybersecurity but we explore also parallel histories, delving for instance in countercultures and hacking collectives, in non-Western perspectives on computing or in the reassessment of digital technologies in the anthropocene. The lecture is built around an interdisciplinary body of research in anthropology, sociology, history, gender studies, computer science and STS.

    Training objectives

    The main objective of this lecture is to build students’ awareness of the social and the cultural dimensions of digital technologies in their historical trajectories. It shows how the social is reconfigured by and embedded in those technologies. Based on case studies, it also examines various theories on innovation, technology, power, culture and infrastructure.

    Students are expected to actively participate in the classroom discussions, read excerpts of key texts and contribute creatively towards the end of the semester to the lecture’s archive of “the computer/internet trivia and odd stories”.

    Requirements:
    Grade will be based on:
    - Participation to class discussion and class preparation (20%)
    - Contribution to the lecture’s archive (20%)
    - Written essay exam (60%)

    Softskills Yes
    Off field Yes
    BeNeFri Yes
    Mobility Yes
    UniPop Yes
    Auditor Yes

    Documents

    Bibliography

    A complete bibliography will be distributed at the beginning of the course.

     

    Abbate, Janet. 1999. Inventing the Internet, Inside technology. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

    Akrich, Madeleine. 1994. "Comment sortir de la dichotomie technique/société. Présentation des diverses sociologies de la technique." In De la préhistoire aux missiles balistiques: l'intelligence sociale des techniques, edited by Bruno Latour and Pierre Lemonnier, 105-131. Paris: La Découverte.

    Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan Leigh Star. 1999. Sorting things out : classification and its consequences, Inside technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

    Ceruzzi, Paul E. 2012. Computing: A Concise History. The MIT Press.

    Edwards, Paul N. 1996. The closed world: computers and the politics of discourse in Cold War America, Inside technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

    Mullaney, Thomas S., Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks, and Kavita Philip. 2021. Your computer is on fire. Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London England: The MIT Press.

    Winner, Langdon. 1980. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"  Daedalus 109 (1):121-136.

  • Dates and rooms
    Date Hour Type of lesson Place
    18.09.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    25.09.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    02.10.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    09.10.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    16.10.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    23.10.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    30.10.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    06.11.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    13.11.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    20.11.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    27.11.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    04.12.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    11.12.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
    18.12.2025 15:15 - 17:00 Cours PER 21, Room C130
  • Assessments methods

    Written exam - AS-2025, Session d'hiver 2026

    Assessments methods By rating

    Written exam - SS-2026, Session d'été 2026

    Assessments methods By rating

    Written exam - SS-2026, Autumn Session 2026

    Assessments methods By rating

    Written exam - AS-2026, Session d'hiver 2027

    Assessments methods By rating
  • Assignment
    Valid for the following curricula:
    Culture, Politics and Religion in Pluralist Societies 90 [MA]
    Version: SA18_MA_PA_bi_v01
    Option > Option Dynamiques sociales et culturelles > SOCIO 3 Interdisciplinaire
    Option > Option Dynamiques sociales et culturelles > SOCIO 4 Interdisciplinaire
    Option > Option (Dés)ordres politiques et normatifs > ANTHRO 3 Interdisciplinaire

    Culture, Politics and Religion in Pluralist Societies 90 [MA]
    Version: SA24_MA_PA_fr_de_bi_v01
    Options > Social and Cultural Dynamics > SOCIO 3 Interdisziplinär
    Options > Social and Cultural Dynamics > SOCIO 4 Interdisziplinär
    Options > Social Anthropology, Politics, Technology > ANTHRO 3 Interdisziplinär

    Culture, Politics and Religion in Pluralist Societies 90 [MA]
    Version: SA18_MA_PA_bi_v02
    Options > Social and Cultural Dynamics > SOCIO 4 Interdisciplinaire
    Options > Social and Cultural Dynamics > SOCIO 3 Interdisciplinaire
    Options > Political and Normative (Dis)order > ANTHRO 3 Interdisciplinaire

    Digital Society 30 [MA]
    Version: SA23_MA_P2_en_V01
    DSS 1 - Interdisciplinary perspectives on digital transformation of society

    Digital Society 90 [MA]
    Version: SA25_MA_PA_en_vo1
    DSS 1 - Interdisciplinary perspectives on digital transformation of society

    German 120
    Version: SA23_BA_de_v01
    Soft Skills

    Italian 120
    Version: SA22_BA_120_ital_v01
    M8P Softskills