The third course of the Spring is a full-term class on advanced topics in 20C American Literature:
ENGL 357 F: Advanced Studies in Literature of the 20th Century: “Posthuman Narratives”
Tuesday/Thursday 11:50 AM-1:05 PM
Spring 2014
http://edmondchang.com/357/
Cary Wolfe defines posthumanism as the “historical moment in which the decentering of the human by its imbrication in technical, medical, informatic, and economic networks is increasingly impossible to ignore” (xv). Popular narratives and imaginings of the posthuman are decidedly polar. On the one hand are dystopian fears over machine intelligence, cloning, and the loss of life, liberty, and humanity. On the other hand are dreams of better, stronger, faster bodies and minds, transcendence, immortality, global harmony, and enlightenment. Looking at scholarship, science fiction and cyberpunk, real and imagined technologies, and video games, this class will take up these fears and possibilities to explore and interrogate the intersections of technology and the body, the mind, and what it means to be (post)human.