This course explores the intersections of contemporary critical theory, new digital technologies, and literature. By examining computer-mediated cultures and major topics through these lenses, students develop sophisticated, scholarly and critical analyses of this rapidly-developing world.
In this course, students will become acquainted with current thinking in such scientific and technological spheres as artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. At the same time, they will explore fictional and filmic treatments of these topics. Finally, students in this course will engage with the culture of the internet as both critics and producers.
The materials the course deals with range from scientific articles to technological predictions to novels to films to feminist cultural theory to crackpot web sites. Students will examine all these sources and formulate their own notions of cyberculture.
Student work will take the form of in-class discussions and presentations, formal written papers, and individual and/or collaborative hypertext projects.
