George Orwell
writer · 3 mentions across 3 readings
In this course
Orwell appears in these readings primarily as a theorist of totalitarian control and surveillance, whose warnings about how systems manipulate information and consciousness remain urgent frameworks for understanding digital and algorithmic governance. The excerpts invoke his sensibility regarding manufactured consent, demoralization campaigns, and the weaponization of everyday technologies—concerns that shape how these authors think about whether contemporary systems of control differ fundamentally from twentieth-century dystopias or merely automate and distribute them. He functions less as a direct influence than as a cultural touchstone for arguments about whether resistance to systemic coercion remains possible in an age of ubiquitous computation.
Background
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.
Wikipedia →Mentioned in 3 readings
Appears alongside
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