Schedule

INTRODUCTION 

Tuesday, September 2

KNOWLEDGE, CREATIVITY, AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY

Thursday, September 4

Bell, Daniel. 1999. "Foreward 1999." Pp. ix-lxxxv in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Special anniversary ed. New York: Basic Books.  

Bell on the centrality of theoretical knowledge

Engine vs. Motherboard

Tuesday, September 9

Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: chaps. 1-4.

Virginia Postrel, "The Aesthetic Imperative: Why the Creative Shall Inherit the Economy" (Wired, July 2003).

Transistor radio vs. Shower radio

Thursday, September 11

Guest speaker: Reynard Loki.

Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: chaps. 5-6.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW ECONOMY 

Tuesday, September 16

Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: chap. 5.

Sennett, Corrosion of Character: chaps. 1-2. 

"Season of the Strike" (Time Europe Magazine, May 19, 2003).

Thursday, September 18 

Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: chap. 6.

Sennett, Corrosion of Character: chap. 3. 

"Good Economy. Bad Job Market. Huh?" (New York Times, September 14, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

Fordism versus Post-Fordism

Value chain [PDF document; see Figure 1]

Tuesday, September 23

Castells, The Internet Galaxy: chaps. 1.

Barbrook, Richard and Andy Cameron. 1996. "The Californian Ideology." Science as Culture 6(1): 44-72.

Neoliberalism

Progress & Freedom Foundation: Mission Statement

POWER WITHOUT AUTHORITY

Thursday, September 25

Take-home exam #1 due. 

In-class video: "Secrets of Silicon Valley" (2001).

Tuesday, September 30

Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: chap. 7-9.

Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: chaps. 1-3, 7.

No-collar workplace architecture: Hut Sachs and Mancini Duffy.

Traditional hierachical architecture: IBM.

Zero Drag

Thursday, October 2

Carnoy, Martin. 2002. "New Technology and Job Markets." Pp. 14-55 in Sustaining the New Economy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Sennett, Corrosion of Character: chap. 5.

"Job Skills: Preparing Generation Z" (Computerworld, August 25, 2003).

"Former Dot-commers are Adjustting, Painfully" (New York Times, August 24, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

NETWORKS OF THE NEW ECONOMY 

Tuesday, October 7

Castells, The Internet Galaxy: chap. 3.

Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, chaps. 4. 

Intranet example

 

Recommended

"48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation into Productivity" (The Onion, October 1, 2003).

Thursday, October 9

Dicken, Peter. 1992. "Global Organization and Reorganization of Economic Activity: Networks of Relationships." Pp. 189-227 in Global Shift, 2d ed. New York: Guilford Press. 

"1,200 Lay-offs Strike at an Industrial City's Heart" (New York Times, October 7, 2003).

"IT Jobs that Belong Overseas" (NewsFactor, September 5, 2003).

"Best Countries for Outsourcing" (Forbes.com, August 27, 2003).

"Making it Illegal to Hire Abroad" (Wired News, July 23, 2003).

"IT Sweatshops Breaking Indians" (Wired News, July 11, 2003).

"Rights Groups Overseas Fighting U.S. Concerns in U.S. Courts" (New York Times, June 26, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

"Indian IT Success Sparks Backlash" (Wired News, May 20, 2003).

Automated story generator and computer generated plots

Labor control, hierarchical command, local dependence

Ford Thailand

Nike: Workers & Factories

Oxfam: Nike and the PT Doson factory in Indonesia

Production Frontiers for Global Sourcing by U.S. Retailers: The Apparel Industry

Japanese Automakers' Local Production in the U.S.

Tuesday, October 14

No reading: catch up on old reading. 

Thursday, October 16

Take-home exam #2 due.

Select topics and teams for website assignment. 

FALL BREAK: October 20-24

COMMUNITY: WIRED OR TIRED? 

Tuesday, October 28

Wellman, Barry. 2001. "Physical Place and Cyberplace: The Rise of Personalized Networking." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25:227-52.

Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: chap. 4.

"Young 'Prefer Texting to Calls'" (BBC News, June 13, 2003).

"Millions Going Solo with Cells" (Wired News, August 4, 2003).

Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: chaps. 10-17.

"Dotcom Exiles Turn Up at New Charities" (Christian Science Monitor, June 23, 2003).

Thursday, October 30

Beck, Ulrich and Elizabeth Beck-Gersheim. 2002. "On the Way to a Post-Familial Family." Pp. 85-100 in Individualization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

"She Brings Home the Bacon: Yet Another Effect of the Tech Industry Downturn" (SFGate.com, June 12, 2003).

"Wage Gap between Men and Women Shrinks" (New York Times, February 17, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

Individualization

Tuesday, November 4

Castells, The Internet Galaxy: chaps. 4, 9

 

Recommended

DiMaggio, Paul, Eszter Hargittai, W. Russell Neuman, and John P. Robinson. 2001. "Social Implications of the Internet." Annual Review of Sociology 27:307-336.

US Census Bureau. 2001. "Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August 2000" [PDF download].

BAR-CODE SOCIETY 

Thursday, November 6

Evans, Philip and Thomas S. Wurster. 2000. "Competing on Richness." Pg. 147-167 in Blown to Bits. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.  

"Retailers Make Sure Freshmen Live in Style" (New York Times, September 1, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

"Bands to Fit the Brand" (San Francisco Chronicle, July 25, 2003).

The Definitions of Richness and Reach

Tuesday, November 11

Hosoya, Hiromi and Markus Schaefer. 2001. "Psychogramming." Pp. 559-575 in Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, edited by C. J. Chung et al. Cologne: Taschen.

Leong, Sze Tsung. 2001. "Ulterior Spaces." Pp. 764-795 in Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, edited by C. J. Chung et al. Cologne: Taschen.

"MIT to Uncork Futuristic Bar Code" (News.com, August 29, 2003).

"Claim: RFID Will Stop Terrorists" (Wired News, August 8, 2003).

Thursday, November 13

Castells, The Internet Galaxy: chaps. 5-6.

"Spam fight divides on party lines" (News.com, July 9, 2003).

"Nuala: Tech not a Complete Fix" (Wired News, June 30, 2003).

William Gibson, "The Road to Oceania" (New York Times, June 25, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

"Hatch Wants to Fry Traders' PCs" (Wired News, June 18, 2003).

OPEN SOURCE VS. CORPORATE POWER 

Tuesday, November 18

Take-home exam #1 due. 

In-class video: "Revolution OS" (2003).

Wednesday, November 19, 4:30 pm

SPECIAL SESSION: web-authoring workshop in the Computer Center's Digital Media Lab.

Thursday, November 20

Castells, The Internet Galaxy: chap. 2.

"Whatever Will Be Will Be Free on the Internet" (New York Times, September 14, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

"Fighting the Idea that All the Internet is Free" (New York Times, September 9, 2003). [REGISTRATION REQUIRED]

"Linux Community Told to 'Get Real'" (BBC News, August 29, 2003).

"Opening Windows, Just a Little" (Wired News, July 31, 2003).

"The Peacemaker: How Linus Torvalds, the Man behind Linux, Keeps the Revolution from Becoming a Jihad" (Wired, July 2003).

"FCC Relaxes Media Ownership Rules" (Wired News, June 2, 2003).

What is Copyleft?

Tuesday, November 25

Team websites due.

THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY: Thursday, November 27

Tuesday, December 2

Gradesheets for team websites due.

COPY-LEFT? 

Thursday, December 4

Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs: chaps. 1, 3.

"At Sea With MP3's, Boomers Buoy Struggling Record Industry" (New York Times, November 2, 2003).

"MPAA Tries Goodfellas Approach" (Wired News, July 22, 2003).

"Smut Trading Outstrips Music Swaps" (Wired News, April 30, 2003).

Tuesday, December 9

Flexible project briefs due.

Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs: chaps. 4-5, epilogue.

"Music Parody Site Pulls the Plug" (Wired News, August 20, 2003).

"Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs?" (Wired News, June 26, 2003).

"RIAA Chief's Republican Pedigree" (Wired News, July 29, 2003).

"Advice to avoid copyright litigation" (San Francisco Chronicle, July 28, 2003).

"Schools Rebuke Music Biz Demands" (Wired News, July 23, 2003).

"Illegal music downloads boosting album sales" (The Scotsman, July 10, 2003).

"The MP3 Economy: How Labels and Artists Divvy Up Your MP3 Dollar" (Business 2.0, June 2003).

FINALS WEEK

Take-home exam #4 due.

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