Instructor:
As a class, we would explore the ways we have tried, and often failed, to record, quantify, and know the human experience. The course would give students the space to critically examine the data they generate and engage with on a daily basis—steps taken, Instagram likes earned, pages read, emails sent, screen time spent—and to consider how our seemingly quantifiable lives fit into a larger (often darker) history of empirical thought. The course would ask students to consider the ethical, social, and political problems that arise when we attempt to define and delimit life with data and to interrogate what counts as empirical evidence.