Lecture d'oeuvre : The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Zuboff)
Etablissement : ESPOL European School of Political and Social Sciences
Langue : Anglais
Formation(s) dans laquelle/lesquelles le cours apparait :
- Licence de Relations Internationales [ECTS : 3,00]
- Licence Science politique – Parcours Européen [ECTS : 3,00]
Période : S3
This course aims to study Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Fuure at the New Frontier of Power, with a view to raising awareness of the moral and philosophical issues and challenges posed by the seemingly irresistible march of the tech giants. The course will be organized around the structure of the book. Each class session will be devoted to reading commenting on and analyzing plural chapters. This course is a reading-heavy class which will allow students to develop their analytical skills and critical thinking while reading. The students will have to articulate conceptual analysis, historical analysis and critical thinking.
1. Introduction. Chapters 1-2 (pp. 3-62). What is surveillance capitalism and why should we worry about it?
2. Chapters 3-4 (pp. 63-127). Behavioural surplus and ‘valueless’ experiential exhaust as the mine of mega-profit. How they got away with it: neo-liberal ideology and the co-option of state security agencies.
3. Chapters 5-6 (pp. 128-94). Why they can’t stop: the extraction imperative. The rhetoric of justification: strategies of denial, delay and obfuscation.
4. Chapters 7-9 (pp. 197-291). From cyberspace to reality: herding the humans.
5.Chapters 10-11 (pp. 292-347). From monitoring to control.
6. Chapters 12-14 (pp. 351-415). Big Brother versus Big Other.
7. Chapters 13-16 (pp. 416-74). From predictability to prescription. Skinner’s utopia.
8. Chapters 17-18 (pp. 475-525). Democracy under threat? Strategies of resistance.
9. The critics.
