Schedule
Sept 10 |
I. Introduction: Humanity/Monstrosity: What's the Dif? Defining the "Human" (The Mind-Body Conundrum) - René Descartes, La Mettrie, natural philosophy of the 18th Century; excerpts from Ghost in the Shell (Allison) Blogger account setup |
Sept 17 |
Towards Defining the "Human" and the "Monstrous": 17th & 18th-century anatomical backgrounds to Frankenstein (Allison) Readings: excerpt from The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and the Marvellous in the Time of the Scientific Revolution by Zakiya Hanafi "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)" by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen |
Sept 24 |
II. Early Modernity Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) |
Oct 1 |
Frankenstein cont'd "The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1843) |
Oct 8 |
III. Modernity "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster (1909) Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) |
Oct 15 |
James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) [timeline blip]: Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) |
Oct 22 |
Allison's gone to a conference: No Class. We'll add one class at the end of term to make up. |
Oct 29 |
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley(1932) |
Nov 5 |
"Mechanization of Modern Culture" by Lewis Mumford (1934) Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) |
Nov 12 |
"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury (1951) Roland Barthes, "The New Citroën" (1957) |
Nov19 |
Essay Due Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968) |
Nov 26 |
III. Postmodernity "Descartes Goes to Hollywood" Mind, Body and Gender in Contemporary Cyborg Cinema" by Samantha Holland Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) |
Dec 3 |
Cyberpunk: "Spider Rose" by Bruce Sterling (1982) "Corpses, Animals, Machines and Mannequins: The Body and Cyberpunk" by Kevin McCarron The Matrix (1999) |
The Matrix |