The History of the Digital Economy

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course offers a historical exploration of the digital economy-its origins, infrastructures, and far-reaching social and economic consequences. Rather than treating the digital world as a sudden rupture, the course situates it within a much longer history of human efforts to mechanize and automate labor, exchange, and thought. Drawing on readings from intellectual history, political economy, history of science, and media studies, students will examine how ideas of computation, automation, and connectivity evolved from early modern period to the age of artificial intelligence.