BEGINS on June 11th and goes through November, meeting once per month.
What is the Good Life in the information age? Smartphone addiction correlates with “the loneliest generation” where 1 in 5 millennials report having no friends. What are we becoming, and more importantly, how are we to, as Heidegger would say, “Come into a freer relationship with technology?” Join David McKerracher and Ann Snelgrove of Theory Underground for six months of sustained thinking on an issue that is the most pressing in both theoretical and practical terms. This course blends practical experimentation and reflections on new ways of living with our devices and the theory of media, power, propaganda, and philosophy of technology.
Instead of meeting several times in short succession, this course is structured to counter the attention economy.* What this looks like practically is we will meet once per month for 6 months. Because we meet once per month on Sundays, this time might conflict with some people’s church attendance, but for others, this will be its own kind of church experience.
*In the age of cramming, deadlines, distraction, and burnout, we want to break free of the expectation that any course worth doing must be done in a short period of time. We chose six months to give you more time to do the readings, to try various experiments with your devices, and ultimately, to forget, fail, fall off, and then get back on this line of thought. It would be foolish to combat attention economy addiction with a short course. For us, sustained reminders and meetings over time seems the most sensible solution.
David McKerracher (M.A.)
David McKerracher (M.A.) is the organizer for, and founder of, Theory Underground, a course-based social media site and app by and for people who don’t belong anywhere: drop outs, blue collar intellectuals, and renegade PMCs. McKerracher’s background is in critical theory, political philosophy, existentialism and phenomenology. All of Dave’s work revolves around a single question: What is the Good Life? Dave’s questioning into the conditions of possibility for living the Good Life led him to an M.A. thesis on “Timenergy, the existential basis of labor power.” This work draws heavily from Marx and Heidegger. Dave develops this concept further in his first book called Waypoint: Timenergy, Critical Media Theory, and Social Change. Because “Timenergy Theory” requires a more robust theory of libidinal economy and ideology, Dave has spent the last few years learning Žižekian and Lacanian theory of ideology from his compatriot Michael Downs. Theory Underground is Dave’s vehicle for cultivating the kind of research and conservation necessary to take this project to the next level, the long-term goal of which is to overcome the current culture war deadlocks by inquiry into their conditions of possibility. The goal of this work is to pave a way forward for humanity to maintain the conditions of a robust cultural plurality, harness automation-for-all, and ultimately, explore the universe.
Ann Snelgrove (B.S.)
Ann Snelgrove’s background is in social science research. Snelgrove graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science from Boise State University where she was part of a research cohort that studied the neoliberalization of higher education. She also helped develop and teach a course on the related topic, “Is College Worth It?” The question that has driven all of Ann’s research, as well as her past political activity, has always been, “What is the Good Life?” At Theory Underground, she has helped develop and teach two courses: The Idea of the University, and Digital Literacy and CMT (Critical Media Theory). When not doing theory related research, Ann can be found traveling the world with Dave, learning languages, reading novels, baking, hiking, or participating in local theater.
This course comes with four tiers of access:
Tier 1: Access to the course modules, live lectures, syllabus, and discussion forum.
Tier 2: Everything from Tier 1 + Access to special guest lectures and longer-term access to the site (long-term buy in to the course forum and lectures).
Tier 3: Everything from Tiers 1 & 2 + Direct constructive critical feedback from Dave (via voice messages and/or marked up reviews of your assignments).
Tier 4: Everything from Tiers 1-3 + (1) Access to any of the live and recorded exegetical reading sessions of this text that Dave will do + (2) Two 1-on-1 Zoom calls with Dave. The first is to be scheduled while the course is ongoing, and the second is to be conducted after the course is over, for a constructive criticism session dealing with your final project.
