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Instructors: Dr. Grit Wesser
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
VL AlltagskForsch I
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Contents:
In this lecture series we travel throughout time to investigate the relationship between surveillance, power, and control from its analogue past to its digital present. Taking inspiration from the film ‘Brazil’ (1985), Terry Gilliam’s dystopian satire on hyper-surveillance, its ‘suspicion breeds confidence’ slogan is framed as a question to probe this lecture series’ recurrent theme of surveillance in relationship to institutional, social, and interpersonal trust. We examine multifarious surveillance technologies, the power of knowledge and ignorance, people’s voluntary participation in and submission to surveillance as well as their innovative strategies of avoiding being spied upon. We critically assess privacy and mass surveillance in the context of authoritarian and democratic regimes, paying special attention to the former GDR’s state security apparatus (Stasi) and contrast it with modern surveillance capitalism. We also interrogate anthropology’s historical complicity in state surveillance and the role and responsibility of the anthropologist in tackling contemporary challenges of research ethics, including transparency and knowledge production.
Recommended reading list:
Selected Course Readings:
- Glaeser, Andreas. 2011. Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Lyons, David. 2007. Surveillance Studies: An Overview. Cambridge: Polity Press. Price,
- David H. 2016. Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Verdery, Katherine. 2018. My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Viola, Anne Lora and Pawel Laidler (editors). 2022. Trust and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books. Zeitraum April-Juli 2024
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