Nick Seaver's course materials
Overview Assignments Schedule Policies
Nick Seaver
nick.seaver@tufts.edu
Office Hours
This course is a workshop in anthropological theory, focusing on technologies made to entice, lure, and persuade—what the anthropologist Alfred Gell called technologies of enchantment. Unlike stereotypical technologies (hammers, trains, and so on) that we tend to think of as essentially physical, technologies of enchantment foreground psychological effects, encouraging us to think beyond basic material functions and to consider the forms of knowledge, power, and social organization that go into the production of technological objects.
The course begins with an extended exploration of one of humanity’s earliest complex technologies: animal traps, which require their makers to model other minds and devise devices that work at a distance. From there, we will broaden our scope to consider less lethal trap-like objects, such as artworks, slot machines, and social media, which work on our own animal minds in similar ways. By the end of the course, we will have drawn a line from mousetraps to AI chatbots, using anthropology’s comparative method to think differently about what technology is and how it works.
This course has been designed to help you learn a few things:
Your work in this course will consist of regular reading, class attendance, and four major assignments: two analytic reports, in which you’ll use course methods to analyze objects of your choice (one trap and one digital interface), and two larger group-based projects, in which you’ll design a trap and study an AI chatbot.
You can see grading weight, primary deadlines, and brief descriptions here. More detailed descriptions, along with grading specifications, will be on the Canvas assignment pages, where you will also be submitting your work. (Note that the primary deadlines for the two big assignments correspond to in-class presentations. There are intermediate deadlines before then and final submissions after then, listed in the schedule below and on Canvas.)
| Assignment | Percentage | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Trap analysis | 15% | 2/13 |
| Trap design | 25% | 3/10 |
| Interface analysis | 15% | 4/10 |
| Chatbot study | 25% | 4/23 |
| Attendance | 20% | daily |
Each class meeting has one or two assigned readings—book chapters or journal articles—which you should complete before we meet. If a text is not readily available online, I’ve put a PDF of it in our class files on Canvas. If it is available online, I’ve linked it here, and you should download it yourself using our library resources. If you can’t get something, let me know so I can help you (and your classmates) out. Library subscriptions should get you access so long as you’re on a campus network; otherwise, you can set up a VPN, use a library proxy, or log in and search through JumboSearch.
While reading, look for main arguments, interesting passages, connections to other readings, or points of confusion. Minimally, you should be prepared to answer the question “What’s one thing you found interesting about this text?” for every reading, for every class meeting, but we’ll all get more out of class if you go beyond the minimum. I expect that you’ll have the texts with you and be ready to refer to specific passages in them to support your claims and motivate your questions. You should do the reading with your own intelligence, not an artificial one.
Reading encouragement program (up to 10%)
It is very important to the functioning of this class that you read. If it turns out that people are having trouble finding the motivation to read, and this begins to impact class discussions, I will implement a reading encouragement program. This will either require short reading responses to each assigned text or collaborative annotation of the texts using an online tool. Points will come from the attendance part of the grade, adjusted for how far into the term we are.
Once you learn what an “operatory chain” is, you will use this analytic method to analyze a trap of your choice, producing a diagram and a short research memo about the sequence of actions involved in the functioning of your trap.
Before spring break, in groups, you will design and prototype a trap (in the expansive sense developed in class). You’ll present your trap in class and then submit a report analyzing it according to class themes, exploring its modeling of prey and its emplacement in broader social contexts.
After learning about the “walkthrough method,” you will use it to analyze a digital interface of your choice, examining the techniques it uses to influence and retain users. You will submit a short research memo and screenshots documenting your walkthrough.
After spring break, in groups, you will study an AI chatbot as a technology of enchantment, cataloging its design features and learning as much as you can about its legal, economic, political, and other social contexts. We will all be studying the same chatbot, and groups will focus on particular kinds of context, according to your interests. On the last day of class, we will hold a poster session to share our work, and group-authored written reports will be due during finals period.
You can miss two class meetings without penalty, and make up four more absences with some extra work. See details in the policies section below.
Thursday 1/15: Technology and Enchantment
Browse through the Pitt Rivers Museum collection of traps.
This should take you to search results. If it doesn’t, follow these steps: Navigate to the collection advanced search page; pick “Object” from the buttons at the top; put “trap” in the Description field; hit “search.” Then you can check the box at the left of the results to show only results containing images—there should be about 355 of them.
Tuesday 1/20: Contraptions and the Mind
Pick three traps from the Pitt Rivers collection (see day 1) that you find interesting for whatever reason and note their accession numbers, e.g., 1999.29.10.
Thursday 1/22: Style and Function
Tuesday 1/27: Operatory Chains
Choose a technical process (like sharpening a knife, brushing your teeth, or signing up for a social media platform) and sketch out an operatory chain diagram, following the examples in Coupaye’s text.
Thursday 1/29: Trap Theory
This piece is the introduction to a special issue on capture; it will refer to themes, theories, and thinkers that you haven’t yet encountered, so take your time. Try to identify one or two ideas in here you find compelling enough to want to read more about.
Tuesday 2/3: Traps and Context (or, Fishing)
Thursday 2/5: Traps and Cunning
Tuesday 2/10: Traps and Art
Thursday 2/12: Traps and Art II
Tuesday 2/17: Proposal planning day
This day is set aside for groups to work together on their midterm project proposals. (I may need to move this session to another date, pending some outside arrangements.)
Tuesday 2/24: Traps and Computers
Thursday 2/26: Gambling
Tuesday 3/3: Control Societies
Thursday 3/5: Care and Control
Thursday 3/12: Presentations
The week before spring break, groups will present their traps in class.
Tuesday 3/24: Deceptive Patterns
These are three human-computer interaction papers that catalog types of “dark” or “deceptive” design patterns. Focus primarily on how they classify the patterns.
Thursday 3/26: Persuasive Design
Tuesday 3/31: Walkthrough Method
Thursday 4/2: Chat
Tuesday 4/7: Magic
Thursday 4/9: Advertising
Tuesday 4/14: Spam
Thursday 4/16: Phishing
Tuesday 4/21: Scams
Thursday 4/23: Poster Session
On the last day of class, we will share our in-progress research for the chatbot study with each other.
This course depends on active participation, which means that I expect you to show up, speak up, and listen up. You should treat each other with respect and patience, and you should engage the readings constructively. If something isn’t working for you or is hampering your ability to participate fully, you should let me know as soon as you can so we can try to fix it. If you are averse to speaking out in class, you will have chances to participate in smaller group discussions, and I suggest that you prepare potential contributions ahead of class time, so you don’t have to come up with them on the spot.
You can miss two classes without penalty, no explanation needed. (Presentation days are mandatory, though.) Beyond that, you can make up four more absences by completing a make-up assignment: find a source referenced in a class reading that intrigues you, read it, and write a one-page précis of it that relates it to course concepts. (For our purposes, a précis is a motivated summary: not just a catalog of topics in the reading, but a short account of what you found interesting and how it connects to the class.) By default, these are due to me via email within a week of your absence, but in extreme situations, we can make alternate arrangements. After six total absences, no more can be made up, and you should consider whether you are still able to participate fully in the course. This policy starts the very first day of class, whether or not you are enrolled at the time.
The two analysis assignments are graded pass/fail: if you meet all the specifications listed in the assignment on Canvas, you’ll get full credit. If you do not meet the specs, you won’t get credit, but you’ll have one chance to revise, with comments from me. The idea behind this is that these assignments are for practice, and it’s more important that you complete them than that you do a great job.
The two large projects will get conventional letter grades, based both on whether your work meets the specs and the quality of that work. Components of those projects may be graded differently (with some parts being pass/fail and others being letter graded). For any group work, I assign a letter grade for the whole group; based on peer evaluations, I may adjust individual letter grades up or down a step. Extreme cases may result in more substantial adjustments.
Because it is relatively easy to get full credit just for completing all the work in the class, I don’t automatically give A+ grades at any particular threshold. I reserve the A+ for students who have both earned a high A and demonstrate exceptional effort and achievement in the class.
I am often flexible about deadlines, especially if you get in touch with me before they pass. I don’t auto-deduct points based on how late an assignment is, but assignments turned in too late or intermediate deadlines skipped with no prior consultation may not get any credit. The general rule is that you should talk to me if you need flexibility; I don’t want to make your life or mine harder for arbitrary reasons.
I want you to succeed in this class. If anything is affecting your ability to participate—course structure, health, family, friends, enemies—please let me know. The sooner I learn about issues, the sooner we can work out a solution together. Any conversation we have about such issues will stay confidential.
You don’t need to register with the StAAR Center or have a documented disability to request accommodations from me. However, you may find the support they offer useful, and I encourage you to get in touch with them.
Email is the best way to reach me. Expect a reply within a day or two; if you don’t hear back, please nudge me. I try to stay off of email evenings and weekends.
I hold office hours several days a week, with online signups to make sure there is enough time for everyone who wants it. Office hours are not just for emergencies or problems; they are open time I set aside for students. You can sign up for a slot to talk about class, your academic program in general, or whatever else you’re interested in. Make use of this time as often as you like.
If you’d like to send me a message about the class anonymously, you can find a link to my anonymous feedback form on Canvas.
Do your own work. If you don’t, then you won’t learn, and there’s no point in being here. Academic integrity issues usually happen when students get overwhelmed and panic. If that’s happening to you, talk to me before you do something regrettable.
Plagiarism policies usually tell you what not to do: don’t buy papers, don’t copy without citing, don’t pass off AI-generated text as your own. Don’t do any of that, of course, but I want you to think more expansively about what the point of academic integrity is: it is not to produce wholly “original” writing, which does not exist (whatever Turnitin may claim). Human communication is always made up of things we didn’t come up with ourselves, at scales ranging from letters and words to concepts and arguments. The point is to combine these materials in meaningful ways that engage with other people. Different communities have different norms about how this should be done: comedians, programmers, physicists, and poets all follow distinct rules about copying and crediting. Rather than worrying about originality, you should think about how you’re relating to ideas that came from outside your head. Who are you thinking with? Where do they come from? How does their position shape their ideas, and how might yours?
In this class, we’ll follow the standard academic norms of the social sciences, which hold that you should cite your sources when you borrow text, claims, or arguments. There are not yet well-established norms around the use of generative AI, but these are mine: Do not submit AI-generated text as your own writing. What’s the point of that? For other aspects of work in class, you may find engaging with AI useful, but keep in mind that you are ultimately responsible for the claims you make and the company you keep. Any variations from this basic policy will be indicated in assignment specifications.
I do not use plagiarism or AI detection systems like Turnitin because I don’t trust them and I don’t like how they make money off of encouraging a hostile relationship between students and faculty. That being said, if I become aware of violations of the Tufts Academic Integrity Policy, I am required to report them to the university, and consequences can be severe. I will not spend much effort on detective work—you mostly harm yourself with this sort of thing—but if I catch it, you will find the limits of my flexibility.
Everything in this syllabus is subject to revision. Any changes will be discussed in class, and I won’t impose them unilaterally unless something serious happens. This page is always the current, authoritative version.