CLL 182 - (LT) Robot Dreams: Artificial and Human Identities in Literature and Popular Culture
Periodically
In this course, we will trace the issues of mechanization and artificial intelligence
in literature and popular culture from the industrial revolution through the age
of the Internet and the “hive mind” of rave music. What is the proper response
to the possibility if the “dehumanization” of individual identity and mass culture?
In attempting to answer this question, writers often find themselves asking what
is really human, and how the natural can be effectively distinguished from the
manufactured. We will discuss both the resistance to technology and the often
difficult embrace of it, reading authors such as Mary Shelley, E.T.A. Hoffman,
Karel Capek, Franz Kafka, Stanislaw Lem and William Gibson. We will watch films
(Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Matrix and A.I.) that make specific reference to the literary readings of the course, comparing
and contrasting them with their source material. We will also examine the topic
of false or manufactured identities in cyberspace as a variation on the theme
of artificial intelligence.
Prerequisites & Notes
Credits: 3 s.h.
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