Critical Data Studies

Catalog description

Data offers a powerful tool to make sense of our world, but it also raises significant questions. But what does it mean to know the world through data? How does data function not as a simple 1:1 representation of the world, but as a way of knowing that transforms objects of inquiry including nature, society, the economy, and us into something new? What can a data set teach us about the people that produced it? Is it possible to read data like other kinds of texts? This course tackles these questions by introducing students to scholarship in the social sciences and humanities that takes data as an object of analysis rather than a self-explanatory research tool. It then applies these ideas to think through contemporary problems in data and data science including surveillance, labor management, AI and machine learning, and cryptocurrency and blockchain. Readings include foundational theoretical texts by researchers in science and technology studies and data science, as well as historians of science, philosophers, sociologists, economists, political theorists, and journalists.