Barney, Darin
Position
Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Technology and Citizenship
Interest and Bio
What does citizenship mean in a “knowledge-based” society animated by technological innovation? Can we balance the demands of technological innovation with our commitment to democratic politics? The answer to these questions is crucial to the democratic legitimacy of technological societies, as well as to the possibility of orienting such societies to social justice. Darin Barney’s research contributes to our understanding of these issues, in both the Canadian and international contexts.
Darin Barney is the Canada Research Chair in Technology and Citizenship and an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Communications at McGill University. He came to McGill in 2004. In 2003, Professor Barney received in 2003 the inaugural SSHRC Aurora Prize, awarded for outstanding contribution to Canadian intellectual life by a new researcher. In 2004, he was selected as one of fifteen “Leaders of Tomorrow” by the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering. In 2002, he was the Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. He has also taught at the University of Ottawa, the University of New Brunswick at Saint John, the University of Toronto at Scarborough, McMaster University, and Simon Fraser University. From 2000-2005, he served on the Advisory Council of the Law Commission of Canada and is currently on the Board of Directors of CKUT Radio McGill. Professor Barney earned a B.A (1989) and a M.A. in Political Science (1991) from Simon Fraser University and a Ph.D in Political Science (1999) from University of Toronto.
Projects
Courses
Professor Barney teaches in the areas of philosophy of technology, media and communication theory, and media and democracy. His courses emphasize philosophic responses to the ontological, political and ethical dimensions of technological society, and the debates arising from these responses.
Publications
Professor Barney is the author of Communication Technology: The Canadian Democratic Audit (UBC Press: 2005); The Network Society (Polity Press: 2004; second printing 2006); and Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology (UBC Press/University of Chicago Press/University of New South Wales Press: 2000) which received the 2001 Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Research by the McGannon Center for Communication Research at Fordham University, was selected as an Outstanding Title in political theory for 2001 by the American Library Association, and was a finalist for the 2002 Harold Adams Innis Prize. He is co-editor with Andrew Feenberg of Community in the Digital Age: Philosophy and Practice (Rowman and Littlefield: 2004).
Faculty page
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