Course Theme.
The intelligent machine--from factory robot to supercomputer to smart credit
card--has profoundly affected American culture since 1945. Along with other
art forms, literature has helped Americans to think about the significance
of intelligent machines and their impact on our present and future lives.
What are the implications of creating computer programs so vast that no
human can understand them in a lifetime? How does our view of ourselves
chance when computers appear to usurp at least some of the rational powers
that have justified claims for human dominance of the planet? How have everyday
patterns of living and moving through the world changed with computer technology?
How has informatics changed interpersonal relations, including race and
gender relations? At the same time as postmodern literature explores these
questions, it also participates in the changes it describes. All but a handful
of books published this year will be constituted through an increasingly
"smart" technology that mediates between author and reader in
a variety of ways. How and in what ways does computer technology affect
the kinds of books that are written, published, and read? Another issue
this course will interrogate is the possibility that the very form of narrative
is changing under the impact of computer technololgies.
Course Procedures.
Every time we begin discussing a major new text, you will be asked to bring
in a typed one-page response. This response can be a question or series
of questions you have about the text, a meditation on its meaning, a riff
on one of its themes, or a judgement on its quality. These responses can
be as simple or as elaborate as you wish, but they must fit on a single
page. (If you wish, you can use front and back). They will be graded according
to a simple 3/2/1 scale (3 means "great," 2 means "fine,"
1 means "think harder"). My goal in having these short assignments
is to give you lots of practice writing. Whatever your writing skills when
you begin the course, my hope is that they will increase considerably during
the term, so that you will be writing more sustained, interesting, and sophisticated
essays by the end. A few of the response papers will be duplicated each
time and passed out the next class period, for you to read at your leisure.
Since we are talking about intelligent machines, I think it would be good
if you had direct experience with computers, the internet, and the world
wide web in the course of the term. I am asking Humanities Computing Facilities
to set up email accounts for everyone who does not already have one. Our
class listserv should be in operation by the second week of the term. My
hope is that the discussions we begin in class can be continued outside
class through this medium. Your computer account will also make available
to you the fabulous resources of the internet and world wide web, in case
you have not already discovered them. You can get the dial-in software from
HCF if you have a computer at home, or you can use the computer lab in Towell
Library (there is a $15 charge per term to get a user's card). Either way,
I will be asking you to respond to Hans Moravec's Mind Children electronically.
Other issues that you want to discuss on our class listserv may emerge during
the course of the term.
There will also be a final essay of 10-12 pages on a topic of your choice.
If you wish, your final essay can take up a topic you initiated in a response
paper and develop it at more length. Abstracts for the essays will be due
May 23.
Grades for the course will be calculated as follows: responses to reading,
40 %; final essay, 40%; discussions on listserv, 10; participation in class,
10%.
Course Texts
Kurt Vonnegut. Player Piano.
John Brunner. Shockwave Rider.
Stanislaw Lem. The Cyberiad.
"Golem XIV" in Microworlds.
"Non Servium" in The Perfect Vacuum.
William Gibson. Neuromancer.
Greg Bear. Blood Music.
Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash.
Marge Piercy. He, She and It.
Hans Moravec. Mind Children.