November 4-8, 2009
at the University of Oklahoma

A "computer hacker" is popularly understood to be a sinister character, an unseen outlaw slipping illicitly into other people's computer systems and leaving digital chaos in his wake. Historically, however, the term identifies a more productive, though in many ways no less disruptive, cultural type: The eccentric, driven programmers whose passion for digital technology has, from computing's earliest days, helped transform the computer from a specialized tool of business and science into the ubiquitous phenomenon it is today. This course begins with an introduction to the value system of the hacker subculture – sometimes known as the hacker ethic – and uses it as a guide to understanding the social significance of contemporary digital technology. Attentive particularly to two central principles of the hacker ethic – its insistence on freedom of access to technology and its celebration of computers as vehicles for creativity and fun – we will follow the ramifications of these principles through a survey of today's most transformative online phenomena. Topics to be explored include online "piracy," open-source software, the rise of remix and mash-up culture, the increasing significance of online games and their economies, the reorganization of the media industries, and the reorganization of knowledge itself by the likes of Google and Wikipedia. More broadly, we will be learning to understand these phenomena not as mere effects of technological development but as the outcomes of complex encounters between technology and culture. Click here for syllabus

The Class Reading List: (These books and articles supplied

by OSLEP)

• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig
• Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot by Julian Dibbell
• Additional articles and documents

Julian Dibbell has, in the course of over a decade of writing and publishing, established himself as one of digital culture’s most thoughtful and accessible observers. He has written essays and articles on hackers, computer viruses, online communities, encryption technologies, music pirates, and the heady cultural, political, and philosophical questions that tie these and other digital-age phenomena together. He is currently a contributing editor for Wired magazine.