Introduction to Media Theory

Through careful readings of a wide range of media theoretical texts from the late 19th to early 21st-century, this class will trace the development of critical reflection on technologies and media such as orality, writing and the printed page, pre-cinematic optical devices, photography, film and television, gramophones, telephony, and radio, as well as drones, surveillance and social media. Topics include the relationship between representation and technology, the historicity of perception, the interplay of aesthetics, technology and politics, and the transformation of imagination, literacy, communication, privacy, reality, and truth.