ANT 1123 Exploring Virtual Space

Whether on smartphones, laptops, or wearable devices, we spend increasing amounts of our time connected to—or at least thinking about—virtual spaces. But what do we know about them: what it is to be in them, and what it is we do there? This course examines these ever-present virtual spaces that permeate our lives. We will approach virtuality as having to do with virtual reality, augmented reality, and virtual worlds, but also with larger concepts of history, art, dreams, publics, and imagined communities. Through engagement with readings, films, Internet sites, 3D virtual worlds, videogames, and locative technologies, we will explore how the concept of “the virtual” affects and is already influencing our daily lives.

Credits

4 sh

Course Types

Society

Offered

• Winter

Notes

 

1. By the end of this course, students will be able to:
   • identify theories and theorists of space and place;
2. • use broad theoretical concepts such as social production, phenomenology, and liminality to analyze the space around them (both physical and virtual);
3. • critically approach their own experience of space as influenced by cultural and social forces;
4. • exercise skills in critical reading and analytical reasoning; and
5. • employ ethnographic writing and methodology in the production of original scholarship.