Hacker  course will trace the rise of hacker culture from its earliest incarnations in the Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT and the Homebrew Computer Club at Stanford to the cybercollective Anonymous. We will study literary and cinematic representations of hackers and hacking to identify anxieties about technology, the Cold War, globalization, consumer culture, and the Information Age. We will dwell with the cultural touchstones that inform hacker culture itself, and define the ethical and political issues that hacker culture incites. 

Section 1: What is a hacker? Some definitions from the hacking community

Section 2: Technology and the Cold War: Origins of hacker culture.

Section 3: Welcome to the matrix: Cyberpunk.

Section 4: Cyborgs: Women in Tech, Tech in Women

Section 5: The Hacker Ethic: Origins and Permutations

Section 6: Hackers Save the Day: The Anonymous Phenomenon

Section 7: Images of Utopias and Dystopias