Computed Discourses

This course investigates the relationships between language and computers. It does so by addressing the entanglements of human-to-human interfaces, human-to-machine programs and machine-to-machine protocols. Through readings in media studies—specifically software studies—and short programming experiments, we will discuss how computing technologies can be used to frame what we say, and how we say it, and therefore question the extent to which our discourses are technologically determined.

The final essay (3500 words) should be a written investigation of a topic relating to discourse and computation. You should identify a question, a tension, or a paradox, and develop an argument in response to it. In stating and arguing for your thesis (i.e. your well-formed opinion, which may be true or false), you are also encouraged to relate it to broader philosophical questions, such as questions of ethics (should we be doing X? under which moral framework X considered good or bad?), aesthetics (how does this change our conception of creativity? of the role of art?), metaphysics (how does X affect our perception of time, space, life, etc.? is X introducing a new kind of space, time life, etc.?) and epistemology (what do we know, and how do we know differently?). The structure of your essay should include: A statement of your thesis Clarifications of any ambiguous terms or words Contextualization of your thesis, and why it should matter to the reader Arguments based on either concrete evidence (factual) or theoretical exchange (conceptual). A conclusion summing up how you defended your thesis, and sketching out implications for further questions. The process of writing an essay benefits from taking time. Think about a topic you find interesting (art, design, politics, linguistics, history?) and skim some basic resources about it (wikipedia and especially the footnotes and further references section; youtube, some longer magazine pieces in publications such as a the new yorker, der spiegel, wired). You can also check this resource for simple ways to think about a topic. Once you have found an interest, make it explicit why you find the topic interesting. Is it based on some sort of wrong assumption? Does it have big consequences of humankind? Does it reveals some things new about ourselves and our societies? To break down the topic, you can consider the stasis approach. You might already have an intuitive answer, but you still need to argument it. To do so, start with an outline. What are the big points you want to develop that support your thesis? What are some big points against your thesis that you might need to consider? How is your argument progressing? Are there any areas that are not covered? (Try explaining your argument to someone else; if you can’t explain it, your outline needs more work!). The writing is also time consuming. Try to keep your sentences short, clear and to the point. Read them out loud to make sure they are not too convoluted. Re-read and re-write, as no piece of writing was ever done perfectly the first time. You can find specific resources on this page. I highly recommend not to use LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT) for writing. I assume that you are at school in order to learn how to do things, and to sustain this knowledge for (hopefully!) the rest of your life. Asking a machine to do the work for you will never help you reach that objective, as you will just be trading short-term gains for long-term losses. You can, however, use these for pre-writing (brainstorming) or post-writing (rephrasing). For the pre-writing, keep in mind that the LLM might not give you the full picture, so ask yourself "What is it not telling me?", as these are usually the hard and interesting questions. For the post-writing, keep in mind that it will make your wording more readable, but also more standardized and corporate, and you should try to find a balance between being clear and having a voice.