Techno-Orientalism: Asia, Technology, Futurity

Harvard FAS

Contemporary understandings of Asia often cast it as a site of global futurity, relying on ambivalent understandings of Asians as both technologically adept and ‘machines’ themselves. This persistent association of Asians with technology and futurity has been termed techno-Orientalism, and this course serves as an introduction to analysis and critiques of this discourse. We will consider techno-Orientalism’s correspondences and departures from earlier Orientalism and look at its development…