Abstract
This Original Teaching Activity describes two modules that enact feminist pedagogy to teach AI refusal, a set of lectures and associated activities which we developed for first-year courses during the 2023-2024 academic year. These activities invite students to refuse AI while also understanding its function and deployment. They explore the consolidations of power which make generative AI technologies both possible and harmful. Instead of presuming the inevitability of AI to replace working and learning or change the world, these activities offer students a materialist framework to refuse the hype, grounding their understanding of generative AI in its techno-political origins and actual capabilities.
Recommended Citation
Maddalena, Kate; Zara, Aline; and Guadagnolo, Dan
(2025)
"Prompting for Refusal: Teaching Against and Without AI,"
Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 6:
Iss.
3, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol6/iss3/6