From Distraction to Mind Wandering: Practicing Human Technologies of Expression in an AI World

This interdisciplinary honors seminar investigates the fundamental relationship between human cognition, literary expression, and the technologies we invent to facilitate them. Moving beyond contemporary debates on digital distraction, this course frames writing, memory, reading, and printing not just as tools, but as technologies of expression and knowledge-making that profoundly restructure human thought. The core question is: How do technologies of expression, from the Socratic fear of writing to the current ubiquity of Artificial Intelligence (AI), shape our ways of thinking and knowing? The seminar pairs theoretical readings on media ecology and cognitive history with active, embodied practice in various human technologies, culminating in a major research project on a technology of the student's choice. Some classes will be held at the Scarlet Letterpress studio in Murray Hall (CAC) in order to practice printing and typewriting. One fieldtrip to a play will be required.