"DEPLATFORMING":
DRAMATIZING NEW PERSPECTIVES ON POST-CAPITALIST DIGITAL LABOR

This class will empower students to explore dramatic writing as a way to express new, class-conscious perspectives on post-capitalist digital labor. We all "work" for organizations like Meta, Amazon, and Google. By generating data within those systems, we add to their market value without the ability to access an individual share of that value. And, we are left working in a new way: compelled to participate in a recognizable capitalist system, while also performing unpaid, creative, post-capitalist labor for the benefit of tech platforms.

Here, students will identify key ways this post-capitalist digital labor factors into their daily lives. They will then create a shared body of language to describe how software metrics ("likes" "followers" "subscriptions" etc) influence their values, priorities, and worldview. Then, students will be challenged to use a broad concept of "script"--text meant to inspire and shape live performance--to repurpose that language and express their point of view as digital workers.

Students will read passages from McKenzie Wark, Bertolt Brecht, Yanis Varoufackis, Alexei Yurchak and others to frame their thinking and conversation. They will then participate in in-class writing exercises meant to explore course concepts. The class culminates in a reading of revised in-class work.
Tuesdays, 3-5 PM PST; 6-8 PM EST
​Online on Zoom
120 minute sessions, 5 weeks
July 29th-August 26th, 2025
$125 - $375 Tuition
Select scholarships and solidarity rate discounts available upon request.

INSTRUCTORS

Daphne Silbiger I am a nonbinary transfemme playwright and musician. My academic background is in performance studies, and I earned an MFA in playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin under the mentorship of Annie Baker, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Kirk Lynn. There, I taught dramaturgy and playwriting. I've been supported by fellowships with Macdowell, the Sitka Fellows Program, and the Center for International Theatre Development, and my writing has been published by Dramatists Play Service and Howlround.
Image Credit : "Factory Workers, Philadelphia, PA", anon, 1925