FLM 294 CC: CLONES, CYBORGS, POSTHUMAN

What does it mean to be “human” within a rapidly changing technological world?  What kind of fears and anxieties do our ever-increasing need for new technologies provoke?  Will artificial life and/or intelligence help us maintain life on earth, or will the robots take over the world?  By examining film and television science fiction texts through both intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, students will attempt to delineate human from non-human, organic from technological.  Beyond investigating the ideological representations of moving image culture, classes will also integrate questions and controversies involving: biology and bio-ethics, including cloning, genetic and DNA manipulation, and prosthetics; computer science, especially regarding robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence; philosophy and religious studies, through theories about embodiment, immortality, and “playing God”; environmental studies, in regards to dwindling resources and the relationship of the “natural” world to artificial ones; labor and economics, thinking through ideas regarding automation as well as technological enslavement; and most significantly, how the use and abuse of technologies can lead to the perpetuation of social and cultural systems of oppression in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability.