For the last several years, I’ve been trying to incorporate new assignments and activities that encourage students to think of the work they do in my courses as having real impact on their lives outside of the classroom. I’m trying to work against their tendency to sit through a course as if they were a…
Read More[NOTE: This is the another installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know!] When I originally posted my ranking of Black Mirror episodes at the beginning of this year, I didn’t include “White Christmas” in part because, in the grand architecture of the series, “White…
Read More[NOTE: This is the another installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know!] “White Bear” (S2E2) is one of only two Black Mirror episodes that I use in class. (The other is “Be Right Back,” which I reviewed here.) In my regular, face-to-face classes, the…
Read MoreIn late December of last year, the fourth season of Black Mirror was released on Netflix, which is why many fans (myself included) had been hoping to see the much-anticipated fifth season released over the holidays. As 2018 draws to a close, though, no official release date has been announced and we still haven’t seen any Season…
Read MoreWe’re nearing the end of the semester and I’m wrapping up two of the most exciting and intellectually invigorating courses I’ve taught in a long time. One of them was an upper-division undergraduate course entitled “Technology and Human Values” (syllabus here) The other was an intro-level undergrad Ethics course called “Contemporary Moral Issues” (syllabus here),…
Read MoreThis is another installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know! [Note from Dr. J: What follows is Part 2 of a two-part guest post from Jeffrey Gower. You can read Part One here.] Near the end of “White Bear,” as Victoria sits bound to a…
Read MoreSince I posted my list of tech book recommendations a few weeks ago, several people have asked me to explain why I describe myself as a “techno-optimist.” I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a quick account (and defense) of my position. But, first, a few preliminary remarks about…
Read MoreRecently, I took part in an excellent interdisciplinary symposium (hosted by Ted George and Kristi Sweet of the Texas A&M Philosophy Department) focused on “Hermeneutics, the Humanities, and the Future of Interpretation.” All of the presentations were great, but the one that has stuck in my craw, and which I suspect I will not be able to pry loose for quite some…
Read MoreFacebook and its enigmatic custodian Mark Zuckerberg suffered their biggest hit to date this week when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica— which self-describes as a political and commercial service that “uses data to change audience behavior”– pulled the personal data from 50 million Facebook users, without their permission, and used it to advance Donald Trump’s…
Read MoreFor the last couple of semesters, I’ve been trying to introduce my students, in as gentle and nonthreatening a manner as possible, to the idea that they may very well be the last of “humanity” as we know it. This has not been a well-received speculative proposition. In my defense, I really make an effort…
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