Humanizing Technology
About the Project
Humanizing Technology is a Humanities Division certificate program that provides humanities training targeted to early-career engineering undergraduate students at UC Santa Cruz. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities under their Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, the project brings humanistic methods and thinking to contemporary issues in technology and engineering.
The Humanizing Technology Certificate Program (HTCP) encourages students to explore the impacts of new and existing technologies. To earn the certificate, students are required to complete three out of five designated courses; they are all lower division classes with no prerequisites, and they do not need to be taken in a particular sequence:
HUMN 15 Ethics and Technology (Perspectives on Technology Gen Ed, offered Spring and Summer 2023)
This course explores ethical, social, and political issues raised by existing and emerging technologies.
Watch the videos from Humanities and Baskin Engineering faculty.
HUMN 25 Humans and Machines (Textual Analysis Gen Ed, offered Winter and Summer 2023)
This course explores the tension between humans and machines, between people and objects increasingly resembling them.
Watch the videos from Humanities and Baskin Engineering faculty.
HUMN 35 Language Technology (Cross-Cultural Analysis Gen Ed, offered Winter 2023)
This course provides a comparative, historical framing of the development of communication technologies and practices, considering a variety of cultures and societies across human history.
Watch the videos from Humanities and Baskin Engineering faculty.
HUMN 45 Race and Technology (Ethnicity and Race Gen Ed, offered Spring and Summer 2023)
This course examines how the construction of race connects with constructs in science and technology.
Watch the videos from Humanities and Baskin Engineering faculty.
HUMN 55 Technologies of Representation (Interpreting Arts and Media Gen Ed, offered Spring and Summer 2023)
Focusing on technologies of representation like photographs, selfies, and surveillance data, this course explores how viewers and makers derive meaning from images and how power operates in their creation and circulation.
Watch the videos from Humanities and Baskin Engineering faculty.
Learn more by visiting the Humanizing Technology Project Page.
Principal Investigator
Jasmine Alinder (Dean of Humanities)
Co-principal Investigators
Pranav Anand (Professor of Linguistics)
Laura Martin (Porter College Lecturer and Project Manager at The Humanities Institute)
Affiliated Faculty
Pranav Anand, Linguistics
Ben Breen, History
Martin Devecka, Literature
Kirsten Gruesz, Literature
Kate Jones, History
Matt O’Hara, History
Kyle Parry, History of Art and Visual Culture
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Feminist Studies/Critical Race & Ethnic Studies
Amanda Smith, Literature
Zac Zimmer, Literature
Affiliated Graduate Students
Debbie Duarte, Literature
Caitlin-Anne Flaws, Literature
Dustin Gray, Philosophy
Mark Howard, Politics
Marilia Kaisar, Film and Digital Media
Allison Nguyen, Psychology
LuLing Osofsky, History of Art and Visual Culture
Mia Tempestt Boykin, Literature
Project Partners
Basking School of Engineering
Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning
The Humanities Institute
UCSC Online Education
News & Events
UC Santa Cruz receives National Endowment for the Humanities grant to connect studies of humanities, engineering
Humanizing Technology Launch Event, November 7, 4-6:30pm, Crown College Plaza
The project is sponsored by:
