Techno-identity: Who We Are and How We Perceive Ourselves and Others
MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences offers this graduate seminar on how science and technology reshape human identity. The course traces identity as a shifting concept, shaped historically by religion, social custom, and philosophy, then turns to how digital media, biotechnology, and networked communication are redefining self-perception and how we categorize others. Weekly sessions pair assigned readings with seminar discussion, asking students to weigh case studies drawn from robotics, virtual environments, and biomedical technology against older philosophical accounts of selfhood. Materials on OCW include the syllabus, reading list, and session-by-session topic breakdown used in the MIT classroom version of the course. There are no video lectures; the course is structured as a discussion-based seminar for advanced students already familiar with media studies or philosophy of technology, and it carries no certificate.