Andrew Feenberg's Home Page

Andrew Feenberg
Canada Research Chair

in Philosophy of Technology

School of Communication

Simon Fraser University

Phone: 778-782-5169
Email: feenberg@sfu.ca
Last modified: July. 15, 2009

 

at sfu

Andrew Feenberg is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, where he directs the Applied Communication and Technology Lab. He has also taught for many years in the Philosophy Department at San Diego State University, and at Duke University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Universities of California, San Diego and Irvine, the Sorbonne, the University of Paris-Dauphine, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and the University of Tokyo. He is the author of Lukacs, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 1981; Oxford University Press, 1986), Critical Theory of Technology (Oxford University Press, 1991), Alternative Modernity (University of California Press, 1995), and Questioning Technology (Routledge, 1999). A second edition of Critical Theory of Technology appeared with Oxford in 2002 under the title Transforming Technology. Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History appeared in 2005 with Routledge. Translations of several of these books are available. Dr. Feenberg is also co-editor of Marcuse: Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia (Bergin and Garvey Press, 1988), Technology and the Politics of Knowledge (Indiana University Press, 1995), Modernity and Technology (MIT Press, 2003), and Community in the Digital Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). His co-authored book on the French May Events of 1968 appeared in 2001 with SUNY Press under the title When Poetry Ruled the Streets. With William Leiss, Feenberg has edited a collection entitled The Essential Marcuse published by Beacon Press. A book on Feenberg's philosophy of technology entitled Democratizing Technology, appeared in 2006. In addition to his work on Critical Theory and philosophy of technology, Dr. Feenberg has published on the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro. He is also recognized as an early innovator in the field of online education, a field he helped to create in 1982. He led the TextWeaver Project on improving software for online discussion forums under a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education of the US Department of Education. For the latest web based version of this software, see http://www.geof.net/code/annotation/. Dr. Feenberg is currently studying online education on a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

 

NEW: Andrew Feenberg's Book Talk on The Essential Marcuse (video--loads slowly)

NEW: Andrew Feenberg's Book Talk on The Essential Marcuse (video--small but loads fast)

NEW: Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming

NEW: The Essential Marcuse

NEW: May Events Archive

 List of publications (some downloads)

Texts in Several Languages: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Hungarian

Courses

Photo Galleries and Catalogues

  1. Photo Galleries
  2. Catalogue of Harbour Centre Photography Exhibit (Power Point File)
  3. Catalogue of the Exposure Gallery Photography Exhibit (PDF File)

Some Background Texts and Applications:

  1. Brief Summary of My Approach to the Study of Technology
  2. Critical Theory of Technology
  3. A Democratic Utopia of Technique
  4. Preface to the Chinese translation of Alternative Modernity
  5. Feenberg on Modernity and Technology, by Philip Brey
  6. Women and Water: At the Crossroads of Critical Theory and Technology, by Yoko Arisaka
  7. A novel design approach for livestock housing based on recursive control—with examples to reduce environmental pollution, by B. Bos, P. W.G. Groot Koerkamp, K. Groenestein
  8. "Socialist" Software by Ulises
  9. Democratizing Technology: Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology, SUNY Press
  10. China in View Articles from the E-Business Monthly and the Sina Web Site
  11. Introduction to the WTMC Summer School

 

Interviews

  1. Interview (with Frontwheel Drive)
  2. Darin Barney interviews Andrew Feenberg at McGill
  3. Tom Fudge Interviews Andrew Feenberg for Public Broadcasting
  4. Documentary on the May Events Archive by Sean Arden

Selected Talks:

  1. Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Reflections on the 20th Century
  2. Can Technology Incorporate Values? Marcuse's Answer to the Question of the Age
  3. Socialism and Anti-Technocratic Struggle in the French May Events of 1968
  4. Involving the Virtual Subject (Video of talk)
  5. Active and Passive Bodies: Comments on Don Ihde's Bodies in Technology
  6. Values and the Environment
  7. What Is Philosophy of Technology?
  8. Heidegger, Marcuse, and the Critique of Technology
  9. The Essential Marcuse (UCSD TV)
  10. Science, Technology and Democracy: Distinctions and Connections
  11. A Democratic Internet?
  12. Modernity, Technology and the Forms of Rationality

 

Distance Learning and Online Community:

  1. Building a Global Network: The WBSI Experience  (pdf version)
  2. The Online Patient Meeting
  3. The Written World: On the Theory and Practice of Computer Conferencing
  4. Discussion Management Software
  5. Distance Learning: Promise or Threat
  6. Whither Educational Technology? 
  7. See also the University of Illinois Report on Online Distance Education
  8. See also the Distance Education Policy of the SDSU Academic Senate
  9. TextWeaver Home Page (alternative site) 
  10. Community Technology and Democratic Rationalization, with Maria Bakardjieva

 

Selected Articles:

  1. From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads
  2. Escaping the Iron Cage, or, Subversive Rationalization and Democratic Theory
  3. Dystopia and Apocalypse: The Emergence of Critical Consciousness (from Alternative Modernity)
  4. From Information to Communication: the French Experience with Videotex  (pdf version)
  5. On Being a Human Subject
  6. Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Democracy
  7. Symposia on Questioning Technology
  8. Symposia on Heidegger and Marcuse
  9. Experience and Culture: Nishida's Path 'To the Things Themselves'
  10.  Modernity Theory and Technology Studies: Reflections on Bridging the Gap
  11. Technology in a Global World
  12. Preface of Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catastrophe and Redemption of History
  13. From the Critical Theory of Technology to the Rational Critique of Rationality
  14. Reason and Experience
  15. Marxism and the Critique of Social Rationality: From Surplus Value to the Politics of Technology

     

Additional Information

1.      Curriculum Vitae

2.      Summary of Curriculum Vitae

3.      Cover Art from Alternative Modernity

4.     Cover Art by Walter Murch from Questioning Technology

5.      Author's Picture from Alternative Modernity

6.      At SFU

7.      Herbert Marcuse in Dialogue with a Young Hegelian (Nick)

8.      The Family Funk Center

9.     An Artistic Experiment, 1963

10.  In front of the Renault factory, May '68

11.  Paris Apartment for Rent

 

Links

 

Douglas Kellner

William Leiss

Phil Agre
Senator Byrd's Speech

The End of Empire?

Hundertwasser's Mouldiness Manifesto

 

The information on this page represents Andrew Feenberg. Andrew Feenberg takes full responsibility for the information presented.