GENDER, TECHNOLOGY, AND INFORMATION INF 386G/WGS 393 # 28880/46364 Dr. Philip Doty School of Information Technology and Information Policy Institute Center for Women’s and Gender Studies University of Texas at Austin FA 2021 Class time: Wednesday 9:00 AM – 12:00 Noon Place: All meetings synchronous online by Zoom Office: UTA 5.452 Office hours: All office hours will be virtual Monday 1:00 – 2:00 PM (by Zoom, telephone, email) By appointment other times Telephone: 512.471.3746 – direct line 512.471.2742 – iSchool receptionist 512.471.3821 – main iSchool office Email: pdoty@ischool.utexas.edu Class URL: https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/1313578 (the sections are combined into one Canvas instantiation) Copyright Philip Doty July 2021 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Land acknowledgement 3 Introduction to the course 4 Expectations of students’ performance 5 Analysis and holism in reading, writing, and presenting 6 Standards for written work 7 Some editing conventions for students’ papers 12 Grading 13 Texts 14 List of assignments 16 Outline of the course (topics, readings, assignment dates) 17 Assignments Essay on gender and technology Leading in-class discussion and annotated bibliography Paper on gender, technology, and information 20 20 21 References Sources in the class schedule Additional sources (AS) of value Selected important journals Copyright Philip Doty July 2021 23 29 43 2 LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Thanks to Professor Loriene Roy of the UT iSchool for the following. Dr. Roy introduces herself as Anishinabe, enrolled on the White Earth Reservation, a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Her father was Mississippi Band, her mother is Pembina Band, and, in her words, “we are mukwa, bear clan”: We acknowledge that the iSchool sits on indigenous land. The Tonkawa lived in central Texas and the Comanche and Apache moved through this area. Today, various indigenous peoples from all over the globe visit Austin and/or call it home. We are grateful to be able to study and learn on this piece of Turtle Island. Since our class is online, you may be contributing from other tribal lands. Here is a map that may help you in identifying the indigenous peoples of the land on which you study: https://native-land.ca/ To read more about land acknowledgement, see: Stewart, Mariah, "Acknowledging Native Land is a Step Against Indigenous Erasure," Insight Into Diversity, December 19, 2020. Available at: https://www.insightintodiversity.com/acknowledging-native-land-is-a-stepagainst-indigenous-erasure/ Many thanks to Dr. Roy for this acknowledgement and permission to quote her identification statement. Copyright Philip Doty July 2021 3 INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE Gender, Technology, and Information (INF 385T/WGS 393) critically examines the three elements of the course’s title in relation to each other. Students will be asked to explore various perspectives on the interactions, historically and currently, among gender, technology, and information. Topics include science and technology studies; techno-feminism; intersectionality; domestic technologies; reproductive and sexual technologies; data feminism; and the gendered character of computing and networked technologies. During the fall 2021 semester, INF 386G and WGS 393 ill have all of its 14 class meetings synchronously online, and we will rely on the UT course management platform Canvas for its various functions. We will meet through Zoom at the appointed class meeting time: Wednesday 9:00 AM - 12:00 Noon Central time. Graduate students from all disciplines and academic units in the University are welcome in the course, and students may take the class for a letter grade or credit/no credit with the instructor’s permission. For the course to count toward iSchool Master’s degrees including the dual MS/MA with Women’s and Gender Studies, however, the course must be taken for a letter grade. In this course, we will assume a non-essentialist position about gender, i.e., we will not support the assertion that there are some inherent, identifiable differences among people of different genders, nor will we presume the long-established gender binary. We also are interested in gender as broadly as possible, considering but also moving beyond “feminism and . . .” or “women in . . .” as the focus of the course. Technology is the second significant concept for our course. We will not limit our consideration of technology to digital technologies this semes