Course Highlight with Professor Jason Lau
AMS402H1F: Topics in American Studies: Interfacing Cultures: AI, Platforms, and Algorithmic Politics Across the Pacific
What inspired you to develop this course?
This course began as a response to a growing sense of disorientation—technologies were being deployed faster than we could understand them, let alone challenge them. Mobile phones, social media, and now AI weren’t just tools; they were reshaping how we act, think, and relate to one another. But the question that kept returning to me wasn’t just what these technologies do, but how they are perceived, lived, and governed—especially across different cultural and political contexts. What does it mean to treat technologies as cultural and political infrastructures, especially in today’s American politics?
Drawing on my research in Asia and North America, I wanted to offer a course that traces the architectures of power embedded in platforms and algorithms, while also asking: What kinds of futures do these systems make possible? And for whom?
What are some key themes or concepts that students will explore?
The course is anchored around a central premise: that technologies are not neutral. We’ll explore themes like algorithmic governance, disinformation and content moderation, transpacific platform politics, and the emotional textures of digital life—from hope and solidarity to confusion and control.
Students will learn to read infrastructures critically, combining insights from anthropology, STS, and design. And crucially, we’ll unpack not only how systems are built—but how they can be unbuilt, contested, or reimagined.
What are you most looking forward to about teaching this course?
The capstone project is at the heart of the course. It gives students the freedom to investigate a real-world tech system or platform—whether it’s WeChat, ChatGPT, facial recognition, or an invisible backend algorithm—and to make its politics visible.
I’m especially excited for the two methodology weeks, where we slow down and dig into how to study systems that don’t want to be seen. These sessions often spark moments of realization that stay with students well beyond the course.
Who should take this course and why?
This course is designed for students who want to understand how power moves through code and culture. You don’t need technical expertise—just curiosity, critical reflexivity, and a willingness to think across disciplines.
Whether you’re a CS major intrigued by the ethics of the systems you’re building, or a humanities student trying to make sense of algorithmic life, this course offers the tools to ask better questions—and to imagine what comes next.
