The recent philosophical and critical movement called posthumanism explores questions about what it means to be human in the face of late twentieth and early twenty first century scientific and technological developments in artificial intelligence, animal behavior studies, and ecological and evolutionary science. We will put essays by some of the leading figures in this movement into conversation with literary and cinematic science fiction about posthuman subjects.
Key Texts:
Critical essays on posthumanism: Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” (1985); N. Katherine Hayles, from How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (1999); Scott Bukatman, from Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (1992); Steven Shaviro, from Connected, Or, What It Means To Live in the Network Society (2003); Sherryl Vint, from Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal (2010); Anne Balsamo, from Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (2011);
Background essays: Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (1970); Friederich Nietzsche, from On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).
Novels: Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968); Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010); Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013).
Short Stories: James Tiptree, Jr., “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1974); Michael Swanwick, “Ginungagap” (1980); Pat Murphy, “Rachel in Love” (1987); Ted Chiang, “Liking What You See: A Documentary” (2003); Charles Stross, “Rogue Farm” (2003).
Films: Blade Runner (1982, dir. Ridley Scott); Videodrome (1983, dir. David Cronenberg); Moon (2008, dir. Duncan Jones); Her (2013, dir. Spike Jonze); Ex Machina (2015, dir. Alex Garland).
Class Requirements and Procedures:
One 5-6 page paper and one 12-15 page paper with research; a final exam; one or two oral presentations; several reaction papers. Attendance and participation are required and taken into account in the grade.