INF2306H: Special Topics in Information Studies

From mobile apps to social media platforms, digital technologies are crucial factors in the evolution of contemporary work. In this course we will analyse their significance in contexts such as creative labour, student and academic work, platform economy, start-up culture, peer production, automation and work refusal, and prosumerism. The course will have a specific focus on the Italian and continental school of autonomist Marxism, including feminist political economy and grassroots approaches to precarious labour. Among others, we will read Federici, Gramsci, Lazzarato, Negri, Tronti, and Virno, as well as a number of empirical studies of digital labour. We will also watch and read relevant fiction. The main goal is to sharpen critical tools to analyse the material and ideological configurations of work in the social factory of digital capitalism.

0.50
St. George
In Class