Gilles Deleuze’s “Control Society” has been a cornerstone of critical thought about digitality since its publication in 1992. Extending Michel Foucault’s theory of “discipline” into a world run on computers, Control offers a vision of endless deferral and modulation where work, leisure, and entertainment become indistinct; individuals decohere into “dividuated” data points; and masses and publics becomes "samples, data, markets, or banks." It was prescient. But “Control” is also a hotly contested concept. It has its roots in the cybernetics of the 1940s and 1950s, and Deleuze adopted it from William S. Burroughs. Many contemporary scholars and critics reject it, even as its popularity increases and its arguments have become something like critical common sense. This class will dig into the idea of Control - what it means, where it comes from, and how it applies to our postdigital world. We will ground our investigation in theoretical and philosophical debates over Control and digitality and pay attention to what (and who) gets left out. Making sense of Control also requires engaging critically with the media of our surround, and we’ll unpack written fiction, movies and tv, games, surveillance tech, music, socials, and more. What does it feel like to live in a Control society? How do we know? What other worlds are possible? How do we make them? We may not be able to fully answer these questions, but that’s no reason to despair. As Deleuze wrote, there is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.