CS 414F

Global Automobilities

One billion cars. This is a common estimate of the number of functioning cars currently on planet earth. This course considers why the car should be regarded to be as significant for global communication as other mobile media such as cinema and television. Drawing primarily from scholarship in Mobility Studies, we examine the social and technological infrastructures, normative values and representations, and human experiences and subjectivities that connect and sustain automobilities, or the global assemblage of hegemonic car culture. Topics include how and why the fossil fuel car has become the quintessential manufactured object of the past century and whether this dominance will continue; growth of the global car industry, including via supply chains and chokepoints for new, used, collectable, and stolen cars; car cultures and sub-cultures in Western and non-Western contexts, including racing circuits and automotive shows; and the regional and global affects of car as weapons, including as bombs. We will also consider and develop future-car scenarios and post-car scenarios.