Humanizing Technology

FAIN: AC-284519-22

Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)
Jasmine Alinder (Project Director: May 2021 to present)
Pranav Anand (Co Project Director: February 2022 to present)
Sean Keilen (Co Project Director: February 2022 to present)

The development and piloting of a new humanities certificate for engineering students.

With the NEH Initiatives for HSIs grant, we will create a new Certificate in the Humanities to provide rigorous humanistic training for our Engineering students. Our goal is to develop students' capacities as deliberative, critical thinkers about social and cultural systems and to train students who can attest to the relevance of humanistic thinking not simply for their occupational life, but for navigating their values and place in the world. The certificate will achieve three goals: ensure that our many Engineering students use humanistic methods to explore and understand the social, cultural, and historical ramifications of new technologies; make purposeful general education requirements that students now complete haphazardly; and, by introducing Engineering students to humanities disciplines earlier, give them options should they change majors, without prolonging their time to degree.

Associated Products

NEH Humanizing Technology Course Design Institute (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: NEH Humanizing Technology Course Design Institute
Author: Jody Greene
Author: Kendra Dority
Abstract: Over Summer 2022, an instructional community of faculty and graduate students assembled to collectively design the five new courses for the Certificate in the Humanities, each tailored to a distinct General Education requirement. These courses draw from and integrate themes that connect directly with the impacts of the biotechnological, computational, and data scientific technologies engineering students study and develop in their careers post-graduation. As an overarching goal, the courses inspire students to cultivate a sense of epistemic humility — to decenter the present moment, problematize conventional narratives, and reckon with the unintended consequences of their field. Each course had a set of course leads (drawn from faculty and graduate students) who worked together to develop a syllabus and assignments and shepherded the course through the course approval process.
Date Range: July 6 - July 20, 2022
Location: University of California, Santa Cruz

Humanizing Technology Teaching Fellowships (Staff/Faculty/Fellow Position)
Name: Humanizing Technology Teaching Fellowships
Abstract: Qualified and accepted PhD students received a $5,000 summer fellowship to assist in the development of the 5-course Humanizing Technology Certificate Program (HTCP). Following the summer institute these students participated in, the graduate students have or will serve as instructors for one of the five courses they helped develop.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://thi.ucsc.edu/cfa-humanizing-technology-teaching-fellowships/?sf_action=get_data&sf_data=all&_sf_s=humanizing+technology
Primary URL Description: Link to the call for fellowship applications.

Ethics and Tech (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Ethics and Tech
Author: Zac Zimmer
Author: Ben Breen
Author: Mark Howard
Author: Caitlin Flaws
Abstract: This course addresses the role of values in technology: Who is technology for? What could it be? How does it relate to its social and historical contexts? You will be asked to think systematically and imaginatively about technology’s dis/dysaffordances, that is how the design of different technologies assists and constrains everyday life. The course asks whether there is a “right” way to do technology, and if there is, how we might go about pursuing it. To explore this question, the course draws on cross-disciplinary materials taken from literature, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, and philosophy, and introduces students to the principles of design justice and inclusive design.
Year: 2022
Audience: Undergraduate

Language Technology: Themes Across Cultures and Histories (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Language Technology: Themes Across Cultures and Histories
Author: Pranav Anand
Author: Kirsten Silva Gruesz
Author: Allison Ngyuen
Abstract: This is a course about the technologies people build to record and transmit language. We look at contemporary technologies like social media, automatic speech recognition and translation tools, and formats like Unicode. But we also look at other important technical developments — writing, the printing press, and mass communication — as well as ways that different societies and cultures have reacted to the issues these technologies have introduced, including questions of access and accessibility, ownership and privacy, the economics of these technologies, and how information and mis-information spreads. Students will explore the ways that culture and language interact, how cultural circumstances can shape linguistic understanding and interpretation, and how these technologies can in turn shape cultural practices.
Year: 2022
Audience: Undergraduate

Humanizing Technology Webpage (Web Resource)
Title: Humanizing Technology Webpage
Author: Jasmine Alinder
Author: Laura Martin
Author: Pranav Anand
Abstract: Webpage designed to provide information about the Humanities Technology project and the Humanizing Technology Certificate Program (HTCP). Provides links to news and events related to the Humanizing Technology project as well as descriptions for the project’s goals, history, and timeline. In addition, this webpage also outlines the certificate’s requirements and provides videos introducing each course offered within the certificate program.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://humanities.ucsc.edu/academics/hum-tech.html
Primary URL Description: Link to the Humanizing Technology webpage.

Humanizing Technology Teaching Fellowships (2nd Cohort) (Staff/Faculty/Fellow Position)
Name: Humanizing Technology Teaching Fellowships (2nd Cohort)
Abstract: Qualified and accepted PhD students will receive a $2,500 summer fellowship to assist in the redesign and improvement of the Humanizing Technology Certificate Program’s 5 courses. Following the summer institute, the graduate students who participated will serve as instructors for one of the five courses they worked on.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://thi.ucsc.edu/cfa-humanizing-technology-teaching-fellowships-2/
Primary URL Description: Link to the call for 2023 fellowship applications.

Humanizing Technology… One Student at a Time (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Humanizing Technology… One Student at a Time
Director: Suki Wessling
Abstract: A radio show in which UCSC professors Jody Greene, Pranav Anand, and Laura Martin join host Suki Wessling in discussing UCSC's Humanizing Technology Project and the work being done to bring humanities to engineering students by creating new avenues through which students can explore cross-disciplinary ways of learning and thinking that encourages students to take a more humanistic approach to technology.
Date: 03/13/2023
Primary URL: https://ksqd.org/humanizing-technology-one-student-at-a-time/
Primary URL Description: Link to the description and recording of the radio broadcast.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio

Humans and Machines (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Humans and Machines
Author: Martin Devecka
Author: Matt O'Hara
Author: Dustin Gray
Author: Marilia Kaisar
Abstract: In this course, students will learn how humans and machines have interacted, become intertwined, and opposed one another throughout history, from the paleolithic era to the present. By examining a variety of texts (theory, philosophy, theater, visual art, instruction manuals, films, advertisements, podcasts), students explore how machines can enable, inhibit, and control their users in a variety of contexts. Students will also apply historically grounded knowledge to propose technological solutions to contemporary problems.
Year: 2022
Audience: Undergraduate

Race and Technology (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Race and Technology
Author: Felicity Schaeffer
Author: Amanda Smith
Author: Debbie Duarte
Author: Mia Boykin
Abstract: Despite the ways we are led to think about technologies as neutral and bias-free, this course asks you to consider how racial and gendered logics shape, and are shaped by, technological innovations (such as facial recognition, codes and algorithms, data networks, surveillance technologies, and drones). By turning to films, news articles, websites, and scholarly articles, we look beyond the marketing and promise of technologies to assess how inequalities are programmed into the automated code driving techno-intelligence. With the goal of social justice and a more ethical approach to technological design, we ask: Who benefits and who loses through these “innovations”? We will also assess the holistic picture of technological development, including what historical context inspires the development of a technology, how they affect the environment, who works to build the components, and who becomes the experts of how we address social problems. You will have the opportunity to work together to debate these issues and to consider how we might propose alternative solutions or interact differently with technologies and the worlds they offer.
Year: 2022
Audience: Undergraduate

Technologies of Representation (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Technologies of Representation
Author: Kyle Parry
Author: Kate Jones
Author: LuLing Osofsky
Abstract: This course explores the technologies that variously delight, extend, and command our imagination. Although we will think through the many potentials these technologies of representation open, we will also explore the social and political problems they can create or amplify. We will also collaborate on creative responses to those problems. In this iteration of the course, our focus is on technologies for visual representation. We will examine cameras, drones, apps, algorithms and other technologies that allow people to make and share images. We will ask how these technologies shape how and what we see, as well as what they keep hidden and obscure. And we will ask how power operates in the making, circulation, and consumption of pre- and post-internet visual culture.
Year: 2022
Audience: Undergraduate

---