The inofficial title of this seminar is "The Black Mirror Seminar", drawing from the Netflix series of the same title. Students will dive deeply into the technological visions of science fiction and challenge these in the light of varying posthumanist perspectives on our future. Students will also be introduced to cognitive science perspectives on human-world interaction as well as AI technology. The goal of the class is to critically reflect the realism in currently popular and sci-fi driven visions for humanity.
Syllabus
Title
0860 Sustainable Information Systems Seminar
Instructors
Univ.Prof. Dr. Sarah Spiekermann-Hoff
Contact details
mis-sek@wu.ac.at; Tel: +43 1 31336 5460
-
Type
PI -
Weekly hours
1 -
Language of instruction
Englisch
Registration
09/01/21 to 09/30/21
Registration via LPIS
Notes to the course
The subjects "Course VI - Information Systems Service Management" and "Course III - Sustainable Information Systems" will be held in the wintersemester 2021/22 for the last time!
Subject(s) Master Programs
By the end of this seminar students will have gained a deeper understanding of various social, cultural, philosophical and psychological issues raised by posthumanism. They will further appreciate the relevance of transdisplinary approaches to related contentious aspects of ICT, and acquire skill in accessing, interpreting, and deploying material from a variety of sources.
Students will also gain a deeper insight into their chosen research domain, and have the opportunity to further develop writng and artistic skills.
full attendence is mandatory
This course is a mixture of an in-class setting and a field-experiment/creative work. After being introduced to the various forms of posthumanism as well as the transhumanistic idea of mankind, students will engage in a creative seminar project. They will chose a science fictin scenario (technology, person, scenario) and discuss it creatively through text (seminar paper) and a poster they develop. Text & poster critically reflect posthumanistic visions, how they are embedded in science fiction and to what extend these visions are realistic.
Students will have one project that is related to the indicative topics.
25% project pitch
60% final project
5% active participation, responses to questions
The approach taken will combine methods and understanding from various disciplines especially psychology, philosophy, philosophical-theology, ethics and literature. While some familiarity with one or more of these would be helpful, prior expert knowledge of all these areas is not required, but a willingness to entertain cross disciplinary approaches, and to ‘think outside the box’ are.
mis-sek@wu.ac.at; Tel: +43 1 31336 5460
The Covid19 pandemic causes several uncertainties for the upcoming winter semester starting on October 5th. If possible within the valid health regulations, the Information Systems program plans to fully return to the usual mode of classroom teaching with mandatory attendance. Nonetheless, an additional “plan B”-scenario for distance and/or hybrid teaching will be prepared for every class, which can be enabled if needed.
The program management will reevaluate the situation in September and decides then whether the classes will indeed start in the usual mode or in an alternative scenario. This decision will be announced in the syllabus until September 25 [for the classes starting in the mid of the semester until November 13].
We’re aware that the issue of visa is currently delayed and we’ll include this matter into our considerations. Should you be affected by such a delay, please inform us as soon as possible via master-is@wu.ac.at.
Last edited: 2021-09-10
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