Deep Tech at the Intersection of Literature, Philosophy, and Society

Catalog description

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "Deep Tech" as "the part of the World Wide Web that is not discoverable by means of standard search engines." When startups and companies around Silicon Valley describe themselves as "deep-tech," it means that they employ methods and technologies that are not available on the mainstream market. What does it mean to practice "Deep Tech" from a Humanities point of view? It means to leverage literary and philosophical concepts and methods so that we can: 1) tackle change, and b) evaluate proposals and new technologies for their coherence, viability, and ethical implications. Three such concepts are judgment, moderation, and love. Accordingly, the course is structured in three parts: In the first part, we will talk about the role of aesthetic evaluations in the practice of judgment as a form of deep collective thinking. Readings on the topic will include texts by Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, David N. Rodowick, and Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio (1883). In the second part, we will discuss the concept of limit (or moderation) as envisioned by Albert Camus, the Italian sociologist Franco Cassano, and Karel Capek's play Rossum's Universal Robots (1920). Finally, we will talk about the idea of love and what it means to receive a political education in emotions as outlined by Martha C. Nussbaum through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818).