Californian Ideology

Catalog description

How has contemporary American tech culture led to radical reconfigurations of work, social structure, and even definitions of what it means to be "human"? In 1995, Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron defined the "Californian Ideology" animating American culture during the dot-com bubble as "the freewheeling spirit of the hippies" combined with "the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies." The next three decades have seen the amplification of Silicon Valley's influence far beyond the proverbial "California" of their original essay. Through a chronological survey of fiction texts, theoretical interventions, and films, we will trace the evolution of this ideology from its origins in fin-de-siècle utopianism, through its development in postwar American technocracy, to its current manifestation in international platform capitalism. We will also engage with the "Californian Ideology" experientially by visiting some of its key sites in and around Los Angeles and through examining phenomena such as posthumanism and generative AI. We will also consider the ideology's political dimensions, from human capital theory and the gig economy, to the spread of far-right thought among Silicon Valley elites. This course will be offered in June-Term 2025 in Los Angeles, California, USA.