Inside NC State’s Crafts Center, anthropology students guide a blowtorch’s steady blue flame over circular pieces of metal, watching them blacken and soften while discovering that technology isn’t just digital; it’s deeply human.

That’s the goal of Are You a Cyborg? Exploring Bodies and Technology, a new course led by anthropology and science, technology and society professor Julie Wesp. The class, created in collaboration with NC State’s Crafts Center, invites students to explore how tools, materials and human ingenuity intertwine, and technology connects rather than separates us. 

“As an anthropologist, I wanted to make sure that students had a broad perspective on what ‘technology’ is and its truly ancient origins of tool use,” said Wesp, who studies the anthropology of labor and technology. “This class is all about thinking about how we understand the world through our bodies with different sensory perceptions.”

“This class is all about thinking about how we understand the world through our bodies with different sensory perceptions.”

Wesp, who has attended workshops at the crafts center since joining the College of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2019, had long wanted to include hands-on craft work in her classes. When designing Are You a Cyborg?, she contacted Carol Fountain Nix, the center’s director, and Myra Smith, its program director, to create a collaboration that emphasizes learning through touch, movement and heat, along with discussion.

Nix said the course demonstrates the center’s role as a hub for high-impact, hands-on, interdisciplinary learning. “Our focus on academic support and research integration is a unique opportunity for our students,” she explained.

Smith added, “When students use their hands and senses, they gain problem-solving skills, new ways of engaging with material and new neural pathways. The benefits of embodied experience are endless.”

In Are You a Cyborg?, students watch fire melt glass and metal, sense the constant motion needed to heat materials evenly, and recognize by smell when something has burned, said Wesp.

Working with fire, she added, offers students a lens for understanding evolution and innovation. Students learn how controlling fire allowed early humans to cook food, stay warm, protect themselves and extend social hours — transformations that reshaped both bodies and culture.

For Liam Vaughan, a senior majoring in science, technology and society (STS), the hands-on experience made class theory tangible. “The tools we used quickly started to feel like extensions of ourselves,” he said. “If I were able to embrace a technology as a physical part of my body, being human must be more complicated than I thought before this class.”

Ava Miller, also a senior majoring in STS, added, “This class really made me think about how much technology is embedded in everything we do.” She also appreciated the freedom to explore her own ideas during the session at the center.

Initially, Wesp said, many students were unsure what to expect, but their hesitations disappeared once they started working. The sessions proved fun and eye-opening, illustrating how human ingenuity and physical engagement have always gone hand in hand.

The collaboration also exemplifies NC State’s Think and Do motto, which Wesp said aligns with her teaching philosophy and is central to her research. “How can you understand the power of fire when you just read about it?” she asked.

“Neuroscience and pedagogical research show that learning happens when knowledge is integrated across multiple different senses and when we apply knowledge rather than simply memorize it,” Wesp explained. “The Think and Do model works for this very reason.” 

Looking ahead, the course will incorporate additional sensory experiences, from taste tests to anthropological studies exploring often overlooked senses such as smell and touch. Students will also examine how digital devices have quantified the body in helpful and harmful ways, and review privacy policies to understand the effects of surveillance in modern life. The semester culminates in an oral presentation that answers the question: Are you a cyborg?

Wesp hopes the collaboration with the crafts center inspires other faculty members to explore campus resources. “Don’t be afraid to dream big and reach out to people who have the knowledge and/or resources to make it happen,” she said.