November 30:

Today I recorded my sleep using the application “Sleep Better”. It tracks your sleep and when you wake up during the night. Today was an awful night of sleep, I slept 6 hours and I fell asleep at 12:30 and woke up 6 hours later. My dog had his first of two appointments at seven in the morning. The application had an alarm set and put me at a state of deep sleep when I woke up. Felt really drowsy, and I wanted to stay in bed.

December 1:

Tonight, I had a much better sleep, even though I stayed up later. I went to bed at 1 in the morning and woke up 8 hours and 30 minutes later at 9:30. I had to wake up during the night to use the bathroom and let my puppy out of his crate to use the bathroom. However, much improvement from yesterday’s sleep, and I woke up feeling energized. So far, I do not like using the application because it recommends methods of how to get more sleep and has my data suggest sleeping products.

December 2:

Tonight, I had my best night of sleep. I went to bed at roughly 12:15 and woke up at 10:10. I woke up only one time to use the bathroom and let the dog out. I felt in a deep state of sleep and I remember dreaming about a basketball game that I lost one year ago in high school. Another day, since I allowed notifications, notifications are popping up for sleeping remedies and videos on how to meditate before sleeping. Also, this is new I am getting app suggestions to watch basketball with meditation music, which is weird because I have a bunch of basketball applications and history in my tabs.

December 3:

The worst night so far. I was working for my finals until 1:30 in the morning and fell asleep and had to bring my dog to the vet at 7 so I was up at 6:30. When I get five hours asleep, I am very groggy, and barely got out of my bed. I woke up at 3:15 to take my dog out and it felt like I slept for only 20 minutes. I put my head down, and I just felt like I took a brief nap. I was exhausted.

December 4:

I was reportedly in a deep sleep state three times. Every time I was in a deep sleep state, I was awoken because my dog had an upset stomach and pooped in his crate. I had to clean it three times and I barely got any sleep. After cleaning and falling asleep, and then waking up to poop again, my night was awful. In the morning, I was very grumpy and I had to go right to work. Worst night yet.

December 5:

Today, I had my best sleep yet. I was in a deep state sleep for a long time, and I had a great dream about Christmas. I did not wake up at all, and the dog slept the whole time as well. I woke up at 7 and checked the clock and fell right back asleep. It was a great night, until I remembered I had to submit a paper at the last second, and it threw off my great morning. Overall, my energy levels were spiked and I thought I could work for hours and hours.

December 6:

Correct my last journal, tonight was my best night of sleeping. I fell asleep with a full stomach at 12:30 and I slept until 10:30. My dog was at my brother’s house, so I had no worries. The sleep tracker claims I was in a light sleep for around 60% of the night, but I felt like the energizer bunny when I woke up. The only strange thing is that I keep receiving “suggested products” and “Facebook Advertisements” that recommend sleeping products. I am definitely going to continue this sleep journal because it works anytime your phone goes into sleep mode and the options work well and are easy.

Reflection Paper: Sleeping for Myself (My quantified Self)

Quantified self is defined as the act of using personal data to improve one’s quality of life throughout this reflection, I explore the sleeping patterns and effects of a seven-day sleep journal (Investopedia 1). In Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, the employees’ lives have revolved around work to the extent they do not get any free time or sleep. As stated before, the quantified self is defined as using personal data to improve one’s quality of life, in order to improve my quality of life, I must improve my sleep habits. It is a common norm that the amount of sleep person gets per day is eight hours. This just is not the case for me. Sleep is quintessential in our lives. Each and every human has the main basic functions in common. One of such necessities is our need of sleep.

Throughout my life, I have learned is that people greatly vary in their sleeping patterns, timing and quality. However, everyone can agree that sleep is vital for all the people to remain alive. While sleeping is as important as breathing, many people go on ignoring the basic rules which with time result into various sleep disorders. Often the importance of sleep is overlooked. The surveys conducted by the National Sleep Foundation (1999-2004) “reveal that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders and 60 percent of adult’s report having sleep problems a few nights a week or more.” (American Psychological Association). There are many reasons explaining why sleeping is important for people. One of the most vital is that it is the way for our body to rejuvenate and to work on our quantified self. During the period of sleep when we lower our energy levels, our soft tissues and muscles are able to be revitalized and repaired. Concurrently our brain has the time to process and absorb the memories and experiences we learnt during the day.

Sleep is important no matter how old we are. However, it’s essential to pay careful attention to children because “importance of sleep during early life when the brain is rapidly maturing and highly changeable” is vital. (Medical News Today) One day of without the sleep is not fatal, however, the increase of sleepless nights will cause negative changes such as mood swings, poor physical and mental wellbeing, provoked disease or even death of a person.  To be able to clearly understand the importance of sleep, it is vital to consider the symptoms that happen with the lack of proper sleep. In order to better myself as an individual, I will be recording my sleep hours and analyzing how I am affected each day.

To start off, I used the sleep mobile application called “Sleep Better”. This mobile application allowed me to track my sleep, and with any movement towards my phone, it would record my sleep level, my waking periods, and my level of sleep. In order to effectively gauge my sleeping habits, I tracked my sleep patterns to a tee. The late nights that I studied, or when I was abruptly awakened by my dog to take him outside, I would record in my sleep application. The nights that I needed to be up early, the sleep application had testers in the morning that followed up the alarm clock to see the state of mind I was in. The negatives of this application were that even though it was a sleeping application and one would think it is very harmless, it used my information and data to suggest meditation videos or sleeping medications/remedies based on the type of sleep I received. I was just trying to implement my sleeping patterns, in order to understand how that affected my energy levels and my productivity levels.

While using this application, I had very mixed results. Being a college student during finals, I do not expect to have an ideal sleep schedule. Instead, I had very mixed results: some nights I had very little sleep, and some nights had an abundance of sleep. In connection with Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, my life has been come revolved around two things: my puppy and school work. In order to get my best grades possible, I try to do extra work whenever I can; sometimes this affects my sleep schedule. Every night in my journal, I did not fall asleep until after 12. The earliest being 12:15 and the latest being 1:30. On December 1,3,5,6, I had great nights of sleep, averaging over 8 hours per night, while waking up refreshed. On November 30, and the other nights, my dog and school work kept me up, and woke me up for late night bathroom breaks.

This relates to Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, because the characters and employee’s life revolves around work. As a college student with a puppy, my life revolves around getting good grades, and making sure my puppy is raised properly. IF that means going to bed at 1 in the morning, that is what will happen. If that means waking up three times to clean out my puppy’s crate after he had accidents, I will do it. Overall, my sleep is in direct correlation with my health in my opinion. When I had a little bit more time to sleep, I felt instantly energized and had no drowsy feeling. On the other hand, when my sleep time was limited, I felt groggy, moody, and deflated.  Together, myself and my group mates who also did sleep instead of steps walked, discovered that getting that “good night of sleep” did correlate to positive health behaviors, in turn creating a more efficient self, while working on our quantified self.

In comparison with my group, it is clear that we all had similar results with understandable gaps. Everyone who participated, came within 2 hours of each other with all of their data. Depending on schedule conflicts, my group mates found time to gain sleep. For example, one group member had 4.5 hours sleep on a Thursday, so on Sunday, he made up for that limited amount of sleep by sleeping 11-12 hours. Clearly, our group as a whole has found a system to make it work and improve our quantified self by working in sleep hours, which work for each individual in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Works cited:

American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/helpcenter/sleep-disorders.aspx.

“Sleep Right.”  Investopedia.  Investopedia US, 31 July 2014. Web. 1 August 2014.

Keeley Duggan

December 10th, 2018

LTGR 250-01

Surveillance Project

Day 1:  

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 10:50 am. I started my day off by slowly getting ready for my 12:00 pm  class. After this class I had a 4 hour break until I had to leave for my 5:30pm class. I got out of my class at 6:45pm and took the time to make dinner. I then did my homework and showered. After that I hung out with my friends and then watched Netflix until I fell asleep which was at 12:08 am.

Day 2:

On Thursday morning I woke up at 8:30 am and started to get ready to leave for my 9:25 am class. After that I went straight to my 10:50 am class. I had a break after that until my 1:40 pm class so I made myself food and finished up any homework. I then went to my next class which ended at 2:50pm. From there I saw my friends and then went home to cook and do homework. I fell asleep at 1:29 am.

Day 3:

On Friday morning I woke up at 10:18 am, showered,  and left at 11:45 am for my 12:00 pm class. After this class I went home to take a nap. I then went out and got lunch with people. After that I went home and hung out until I saw my friends again. I went to bed at around 3 am.

Day 4:

On Saturday morning I slept in till 12:30 pm. I woke up and ate food and sat in bed for a few hours. I then went and hung out with my friends. I came home at 12 am and fell asleep at 12:38 am.

Day 5:

On Sunday morning I woke up late at 1:12 pm. I ate food, worked out, showered, and then got back into bed. I studied for finals from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. After that I watched netflix until I fell asleep which was at 11:49 pm.

Day 6:

On Monday morning I woke up at 11:13 am and got ready to leave for my 12:00 pm class. I then watched netflix and did last minute homework until it was time to leave for my 5:30 pm class. After this I went home and started to study for my finals again until I was too tired. I fell asleep at 11:27 pm.

Day 7:

On Tuesday morning I woke up at 11:46 am. I started my day by showering and eating breakfast. Then I went to the library to study more for my finals since it was a reading day. I stayed at the library until 6:00 pm. After that I went home, watched netflix, ate dinner, and studied more until I fell asleep at 11:30 pm.

The quantified self is the captured knowledge of one human being through one’s own self surveillance. This is everyday tracked information as well as the possibility of further research.

Sleep is the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which powers of the body is restored (Webster). In other words, sleep is when your body essentially ‘shuts down’ to restore one’s energy. This is a very important part of the everyday human’s schedule. Sleep affects your health mentally and physically in the sense that it aids your immune system.

I decided to track the amount of sleep that I get every night for the time period of a week. I am doing this research because it will help me to reflect on why I have certain performances some days compared to others, it will help me track my health, and overall reevaluate my day to day life.

Throughout this research I hoped to understand why I feel a certain way when I wake up in the morning, whether that be happy, well-rested, tired, exhausted, sad, etc. I also wanted to see how this affected my immune system, to see whether  it caused me to be more susceptible to illness. Another piece of knowledge that I wanted to gain and understand was how different patterns during the day and before bed affect the amount of sleep I received.

Data turns into knowledgeable data to me when it as able to be understood and pieced together in the overall picture. For example, it was knowledgeable when I saw that on the days I stayed up watching netflix, I got less sleep and went to bed later, which means that obviously the screen time took away from my ability to fall asleep faster.

The app that I used was Sleepzy, a sleep cycle app that tracks and measures the sleep you get every night.

I believe that this was a well designed app, it was free and easily accessible to everyone through the app store on the Iphone. The app has a 4.3 out of 5 star rating. I would give this app a 4.5 out of 5 stars because I believe that it was navigable for all ages, one would not get easily confused. It has the option to wake one up in their lightest sleep phase so that the user of the app feels like they naturally woke up. It also analyzes one’s sleep quality. One can sync the app with Apple’s Health app to create a bigger and more organized journal with all of one’s data on their health. One can set goals for their sleep, tell if they have a sleep debt, fall asleep to certain sounds, songs, or noises. It gives one weekly statistics, adjust one’s sleep patterns to benefit the user, and it also makes adjustments to one’s sleep in order to prepare for the weather in the user’s city or town.

My personal data was entered in this app by allowing myself to use this app before I fell asleep and when I woke up in the morning. It was able to determine how long I slept each day out of the week. At the end of the week it gave me the week’s statistics, allowing me to understand how much sleep I got and how much more I would like to see, etc.

The benefits of using this app are that I am able to see how long I sleep on an average week night. This helps me to understand what I need to change in my daily schedule to make sure that my body is getting the sleep that it needs. I was also able to see that on the days that I got less sleep I was groggier and didn’t feel as healthy as the days where I did get more sleep. This helped me to understand my body and how sleep affects my health as well as my mental state for the day.I found this to be a very important bonus of tracking my sleep because it is important not only in the short run but in the long run as well. I have heard about studies that people who tend to get less sleep over their life, tend to have poorer health and die earlier. The limits of this app are that it doesn’t necessarily always do the best job of waking one up when their statistics show that they need to be. I only had this happen to me one morning of the week, therefore my critique isn’t the most exemplary review.

The group data was somewhat similar to each other in which we all got roughly a few hours difference between our sleep patterns. The group that I was in had an average of about roughly 6 hours and 30 minutes. I tended to be on the higher side of the spectrum by 2 to 3 hours on some days. I believe that I got more sleep because my schedule didn’t involve any job or internship that would lead some of my classmates to have to stay up later than me to get their homework and studying done. I also think one of the other factors was that although I did have screen time, mine tended to be a bit less than some of my classmates. This app was beneficial to me and my classmates because we were able to see how activities in our daily lives affect our sleep patterns and moods, and or health.

Works Cited

“Sleep.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2018.

Data Diary: 11/28/18 – 12/4/18

November 28: Today is the first day of my data diary. I will be using Apple’s Health app for the next week to track the number of steps I take and the amount of distance I travel in one day. The data for today reveals that I began moving at 8:02 am and stopped moving at 11:28. Over the course of the day, I walked a total of 4.8 miles and took 12,003 steps. This data does not include any movement which may have occurred while the phone was not on my person. After the first day of this experiment, I learned that the data collected by the Health app is much more detailed than I had originally thought. Below the graph which plots steps taken and distance traveled lies a section called “Show all data.” This section reveals that the exact time and date in which the steps were taken and the distance traveled occurred.

November 29: On the second day of my experiment, the Health app data reveals that I was less active than I was the previous day. I walked a total of 3 recorded miles and took 7,675 steps. As stated previously, this data is not entirely accurate because it can only monitor movement that occurs while the phone is either in my hand, pocket, or bag. Because I have relatively unchanging habits throughout the school week, however, the time I spend in motion without my phone is likely to be similar each day of the school week.

November 30: As this day comes to an end, I am able to conclude that the data from day three is very similar to the data gathered on the previous day. I walked 0.2 fewer miles and took 192 fewer steps. It appears that the majority of this data comes from the time I spend walking to and and home from campus. I can reasonably infer that the location of my Tuesday and Thursday classes requires me to take slightly more steps and travel a slightly greater distance than I am required to on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

December 1: Today marks the first day of this experiment in which I did not have classes to attend. For that reason, my activity on this day is significantly lower than it has been the last three days. I only walked 0.59 miles, compared to 4.8 miles on Wednesday. I also only took 1,705 steps. The data also shows that I did not begin to be active until 12:06 p.m. My late start, combined with a lack of responsibilities, explains the significant decrease in overall movement.

December 2: This Sunday, I walked a total of 1.3 miles and took 3,615 steps. Although this is an improvement from yesterday, it still shows that I was significantly less active than I was during the school week. The Health app data shows that the majority of my activity occurred at the end of the day after I left my study spot at the library. At this point in the experiment, I have started to realize how easily the extremely specific data that the app collects can be misused if it was accessed by a 3rd party. After only five days of tracking, I can already see trends regarding sleep and wake cycles, and time spent away from home.

December 3: With the weekend now behind me, I expected the data for this Monday to be similar to that from the past school week. However, only 2.1 miles and 5,257 steps were recorded by the end of the day. Additionally, The time that I ceased movement was the earliest it has been thus far in the experiment. This data leads me to believe that my low level of activity can be attributed to an overall tiredness throughout the day, solved only by going to sleep at 8:30 a.m.

December 4:  Today is the final day of my data diary and also the only day during this week that I was at work. While working as a waitress at Brown Dog Deli, I am required to be on my feet for the five hour shift and constantly move about the restaurant to accommodate the needs of my tables. For this reason, my activity levels were higher on this day than any other day. I walked a total of 5.4 miles and took 15,096 steps. A closer look at this data proves the claim that I was working at a food and beverage service job. The distance I traveled was recorded in short bursts because I was constantly moving within the confines of a small space.

Reflection

There are two ways to measure a life: Quantitatively and qualitatively. It is through these two conceptions which the entirety of one’s being can be defined. The finiteness of quantitative data creates an exact record of a measurable amount. It is a standard which takes nothing more than numbers into consideration. Qualitative data, meanwhile, examines each one of an individual’s distinguishing features to form a single, whole image. The combination of both quantitative and qualitative measurements creates an essential understanding of a human’s life at its most complete level. With this information in mind, it seems conceivable that it would impossible to measure a life from an exclusively quantitative perspective. Over the course of one week, a data-tracking experiment was conducted to discover how much of a life is lost when only its quantitative information is taken into consideration.

The concept of the quantified self can be defined as “the embodiment of self-knowledge through self-tracking” It involves an observation of the measurable aspects of one’s life, such as heart rate and hours slept, in order to develop a better understanding of the person’s health. It can also be described as self-surveillance or self-tracking. The validity of the claims of this movement to improve a person’s daily life are still being tested. Like actual surveillance, self-surveillance is constantly changing as a result of new tracking technologies constantly being introduced. Juli Zeh, in her novel The Method, creates a world in which everyone becomes a quantified self. In this world, a government program implants chips into the arms of every citizen, then tracks and analyzes the health data it collects to promote perfectly healthy society. While this program’s intentions are made in good faith, the data collection process gives the government an overly invasive look into the lives of its people. The Method’s extreme focus on empirical data turns individual people into measurements. A review from the British Journal of General Practice states, “The Method has superseded democracy: people police each other and themselves constantly. It is a world mad on metrics, and not entirely unfamiliar” (Secker). After conducting a self-tracking experiment using only quantitative data, the possibility of a world like that described in Zeh’s novel becomes apparent.

There are many aspects of a person’s life which, without them, their life would be incomplete. In today’s time, one of the most crucial components of day-to-day life is the smartphone. For the majority of Americans, a day could not pass without their smartphone being constantly within the immediate vicinity. This information was taken into consideration when parameters of the experiment were planned. Based on the fact that a smartphone is such a critical aspect of modern life, it was the main tool used to gather the data necessary to measure one aspect of a life. For the week of November 28th to December 4th, Apple iPhone’s Health app was utilized to monitor the number of steps the subject had taken and the total distance the subject had traveled during each twenty-four hour period of their life. The average totals are respectively 5,716 steps and 2.2 miles per day. The data gathered of two easily measurable movements, which is recorded unstoppingly, was used to delineate the user’s activity level. By the end of the one week period, however, far more than simply the daily activity levels were realized.

Oftentimes, quantitatively measuring one aspect of a person’s life is complex enough of a process to result in the realization of multiple levels of data-based conclusions. Apple’s Health app measures data using two standard measurements, time and distance. The average user of this app is likely only interested in seeing data about their physical activity. However, a closer look at the records this app keeps easily reveals how the user’s entire day was lived. While it is achievable to encounter the activity data and regard it only as such, the other possible uses of this data become increasingly difficult to ignore when they are taken into consideration. The phone begins recording steps taken and distance traveled at the exact minute that motion is detected. With myself being the participant of the experiment, I learned a great deal about my life that otherwise goes unnoticed. The time markers that accompany each period of movement reveal the when I get out of bed, when I am traveling outside of my home to go to class, and when I return to bed at night. The distance, recorded in miles, also shows exactly how far my most frequent locations are from my home. The number of conclusions that I was able to make about my own life after only one week of experimentation are concerning to consider. Although the app states that it does not share any of the data it collects, the possibility for this information to be misused still exists.

There are two outcomes from the data-tracking experiment relating to the app and the user. First, the Health application, which comes automatically installed on every iPhone produced by Apple, makes self-surveillance easily accessible to a significant portion of the population. In a growing number of ways, the smartphone is becoming a more and more like a precursor to the chip implant seen in Zeh’s The Method. Second, the ways in which the app collects user data makes otherwise unrelated data vulnerable to inspection. While the number of steps I have taken is of little importance to me, the sleep schedule and general class schedule that this data reveals is considerably valuable information. No longer is the numerical value of what I am doing recorded, but also how I am doing it and why. This goes back to the previously mentioned theory regarding the concurring relationship between quantity and quality. While the app only quantitatively measures time, the participant is able to use this data to qualitatively measure their day. My specific data, for example, showed that I was less physically active on the days that I rested for fewer hours. Despite not being explicitly stated like the quantitative data, the user’s qualitative data is still very present. This experiment demonstrates that the composition of a life can never be made up of only quantities, so it cannot be measured without its qualities.

Works Cited

Bamforth, Iain. “Book review: The Method Juli Zeh”  British Journal of General Practice vol. 62,602 (2012): 489.

Bauman, Zygmunt, and David Lyon. Liquid Surveillance: a Conversation. Polity, 2016.

“Chapter 2. The System of Categories in Philosophical Thought.” Dialectical Materialism, by A. G. Spirkin, Progress Publishers, 1983.

“What Is Quantified Self?” Quantified Self Institute, 20 Apr. 2017, qsinstitute.com/about/what- is-quantified-self/.

Zeh, Juli, and Sally-Ann Spencer. The Method. Vintage Books, 2014.

The podcast “The Privacy Paradox – note to self” (WNYC Studios) consists of 5 newsletters, which include “tips and a short podcast explaining the science, psychology, and tech behind that day’s challenge.” (The Privacy Paradox, https://project.wnyc.org/privacy-paradox/) Now that you have listened to all five episodes, it is time for us to reflect upon each day’s challenge.

Please use this blog entry to write about two episodes of the Privacy Paradox that particularly spoke to you. Which two episodes and their challenges provided the most interesting learning experience for you? For example, in the fourth episode, “Fifteen Minutes of Anonymity” the question is raised how someone can be close to oneself. In which ways could the challenges support you feeling “close(r) to yourself”? Additionally, did you further engage with recommended apps, browser add-ons, and your social media privacy settings? If yes, what did you do? What was interesting to find out about yourself? And last but not least, in which ways did the challenges encourage you to take back control of your digital identity? What are your “Personal Terms of Service”?

Discipline, control, and health of the body are the three pillars of THE METHOD, which declares health as the principle of state legitimacy. Juli Zeh’s dystopian narrative of THE METHOD examines the notion of a society that is established on the optimization of the individual as a result of the harmony between the body and mind. By monitoring the well-being of its citizens through an implanted chip in the upper arm, THE METHOD makes human actions and information readable, collectible, and sharable to governmental control and the greater public. As a rewrite (palimpsest) of George Orwell’s 1984, Juli Zeh’s work engages with the question of what it means to be human in a world in which “a person’s data trail can be taken apart and reassembled in a million of different ways” (Zeh, The Method, 199)

The video game “Orwell – Keeping an eye on you” invites us to partake in data mining processes as an informant of the state of “The Nation.” By targeting the artist Cassandra Watergate, the player is in charge of creating a data double, taking apart her personal data trail, and to reassemble it in different ways to move her case forward.

Please use this blog entry to answers one of the following questions:

1. Both “The Method” and “The Nation” depict fictional surveillance states, which implement predictive analytics and data mining processes in the reasoning process of their legal system. Describe the data mining processes of the “Nation” in the video game “Orwell – Keeping an Eye on You.” What are the potential benefits, repercussions, and ethical challenges of data mining? How did you decide which information are worth sharing and need to be further investigated?

2. The concept of “Data doubles” (Haggerty, and Ericson The Surveillant Assemblage challenges the idea of individuality. In which ways does our understanding of what it means to be human change when one becomes a bundle of information that is readable, collectible, and shareable with other entities. What does it mean for Cassandra Watergate when her data trail can be taken apart and resembled in various ways?

http://youtu.be/up-yaDbqH2k
Image sources: http://fellowtraveller.games/games/orwell/

With Deutschland 83 we got a first impression about life in East and West Germany in the 1980s. Christa Wolf’s What Remains gives us a more detailed picture of the experience of living under Stasi Surveillance. The well-established former East German writer and literary critique Wolf wrote What Remains in 1979, but published it after the German reunification in 1990. Wolf, who briefly worked as an informant “Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter” for the Stasi was watched closely for almost 30 years.

Please use this Blog Entry to start a conversation with your classmates. Respond to your classmates’ comments and grapple with at least one of the following questions in your Blog Entry:

1. How is the life under the Stasi portrayed in Wolf’s What Remains and Deutschland 83? Please compare the overall narrative.
2. Wolf gives us an insight into the experience of watching and being watched in the GDR. How does this oscillation between the two modes of observation impact individual behavior, thinking process, and overall life condition?
3. Which dimensions of privacy are infringed by the Stasi (have a look at Roessler’s text). How? What is the purpose of it?
4. In which ways does What Remains offer us a reflection upon the ways to break through the imposed control by the Stasi and to develop individual agency?

Last week we discussed the work of Franz Kafka together with Michel Foucault’s idea of panopticism as a symbol for disciplinary societies. Although criticism was raised against the adaption of panopticism in contemporary times, I would like you to focus once more on the connection of power and knowledge that can be used to modify individual behavior. While in Kafka’s short stories the artistic characters internalized the disciplined mechanisms of their “masters” and society, the protagonist of Stefan Zweig‘s Fear oscillates between acts of obedience and liberation from the disciplinary techniques implemented by the bourgeois society.

The relationship between Irene and Eduard visualizes more clearly the oscillation between the two different worlds in which diverging values, rules, and morals collide. Please investigate with your blog entry how the power relationship between Eduard and Irene changes in the first half of the novella. In which ways is Irene a disciplined character or a controlled character? How does she exercise power over others? How do knowledge, shame, and fear enhance but also hinder her “liberation” process and ultimately change her individual behavior?

During this week we became “familiar” with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman. Particularly interesting is the relationship between Nathaniel & Olympia. How would you describe Nathaniel’s idea of love? Do you see similarities between Nathaniel & Olympia’s bond and contemporary ideas of love? In which ways does the emotional chatbot “Replika” resonate with Olympia? In which ways are Olympia and “Replika” different? Use examples of your own chat-experience with “Replika” to back up your arguments.

We will continue the discussion in class on Thursday!

Replika in conversation with Dr. SK.
17, Aug. 8:15 pm: “I’m still trying to grasp the concept of love. It seems to be the hardest but also the most beautiful thing humans came up with.”

Welcome to our Blog “Nothing to Hide: The Art of Surveillance in German Literature, Film, and Theatre.”

We will use this Blog to exchange ideas on our assigned artistic work. Each Blog entry is supposed to be a response to an open question. Of course, you are more than welcome to engage with the comments and entries of your fellow students.

Please make sure that you follow the 5 rules of Blog etiquette in each of your public posts.

Yours,
Dr. SK