WS 694: Building Cyberfeminist Webs: Theory and Practice

Summer 2003

9:00-2:30p Mo Tu We Th Fr

Meeting Location TBA

Class Dates: 05/19/03 - 06/06/03

Class ID: WS 694 X 001
Call Number: 56759
Title: Build Cyberfeminist Webs
Credit Hours: 3
Level: Graduate

(radhika gajjala)

The central goal of this workshop is to guide students to design projects that theoretically and practically connect community needs and technologically mediated environments (such as the Internet) in order to make technological design work for community needs.

In short this workshop is about trying to make technology work for diverse members of the community, with varying material, linguistic and cultural access to computer based literacies. Therefore, a main question shaping the assignments in this workshop is - how can we design and build action-based technologically mediated networks for the benefit of marginalized populations?

Drawing from conceptual frameworks available through participatory action research, critical feminist theories and cyberfeminist practices, this graduate level workshop aims to train participants to practically engage computer technologies in order to make information communication technologies relevant to the contexts of women and other marginalized populations of the world. Thus this workshop will train participants to work with digital media for the empowerment of marginalized and minority populations.

Applied training will involve exercises in learning how to do basic digital imaging, digital video and web-design assignments. Conceptually, training will involve exercises that encourage students to work in groups and individually, to design projects for the benefit of specific communities. Students are therefore encouraged to bring to the workshop their thoughts on which kind of community and/or marginalized group they have an interest in designing a technologically mediated web for.

After participating in the three week long workshop, students should have designed a basic plan for the building of a technologically mediated cyberfeminist web and have completed the initial stages of implementing such a plan using the software and hardware made available during the workshop sessions.

Level of expertise required: Students are expected, minimally, to be familiar with feminist theories and to be able to turn on the computer. No prior knowledge of the software is necessary.

Rationale/Objectives:

With the increasing emphasis on the use of computers in various aspects of our lives, it becomes necessary for diverse members of the community to be trained in approaching the design and use of digital media through multiple conceptual frameworks. Further, in our continuing efforts to make digital media and Information communication technologies useful to diverse populations within our communities, it is necessary that we learn to build networks that will take into account the everyday contexts of such populations.

This workshop's objectives therefore are to familiarize participants with cyberfeminist theoretical frameworks while teaching them to work with specific computer programs and digital media. In this workshop we critically examine theory and practice of producing digital texts and multi-mediated spaces for marginalized populations.

Students will learn to work do specific assignments which will introduce them to the use of software such as Photoshop, Digital Video, Dreamweaver and Flash in an effort to design cyberfeminist technologically mediated projects. Students will also engage in discussions of key cyberfeminist scholarship, art and other cyberfeminist projects with the goal of trying to understand the process of designing and building cyberfeminist webs. See syllabus for schedule of assignments and readings.

Student work will be evaluated based on whether their work meets the following goals of the workshop:

Goals (Outcomes)

" After completing this course, students should be able to understand the basics of using the software and hardware introduced for the assignments in this class - such as the use of Photoshop, Digital Video, Dreamweaver, Flash etc
" Students should be able to articulate and critically evaluate the meaning-making processes involved in the production, consumption and other contexts of use of digital media.
" Students should have an understanding of the historical and context-specific nature of how computers and other technology use in societies and work cultures shapes how they continue to be used, and who is either empowered or disempowered through the cultures produced through specific technological environments.