8:462 Seminar in Cultural Studies:

Cyborg Culture

 

Instructor: Rob Latham

 

Course Times: Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 PM, in EPB 216

Office Hours: Thursdays, 2:30-4:00 PM and by app't, in EPB 455

Phone: 335-0465 (office); 337-3364 (home); robert-latham@uiowa.edu (e-mail)

 

Required Texts (all at Prairie Lights Bookstore and on Library Reserve):

Also: Library Reserve Packet (texts marked below with asterisk)

Description: This seminar examines the theoretical and cultural currency of the cyborg (cybernetic organism) as a symbolic condensation of the promises and perils of posthumanist identity. If, as Michel Foucault argues in The Order of Things, "man"--that psycho-physical paradigm instantiated in the nineteenth-century human sciences (philology, biology, political economy)--is "an invention ... nearing its end," then the cyborg marks its point of disappearance and the simultaneous emergence of a new form of corporeality associated with the posthuman sciences--cybernetics, robotics, computer technology. This vast mutative transition finds potent expression throughout the theoretical and aesthetic cultures of postmodernity, and this seminar will, therefore, employ an interdisciplinary focus upon texts derived from diverse media in order to descry the psycho-social horizons of cyborgization. Our purpose will be twofold: 1.) to elicit the immanent logic of cyborg culture in terms of its sexual-economic-political normativity (what does it mean to be a cyborg in the bedroom? in the workplace? in the public sphere of civic responsibility?); and 2.) to establish critical standards to evaluate these norms without recourse to the waning verities of a moribund humanism (how can one be a feminist and/or queer cyborg? a labor-activist cyborg? a politically committed cyborg?). The syllabus is organized as both an historical survey and a series of important case studies, the animating focus throughout being on the social and cultural logic of automation in its industrial and postindustrial (cybernetic) guises. Automation, as a techno-social process, provides the theoretical and practical horizon for cyborg consciousness and possibility.

 

Requirements: The first obvious requirement is that you attend every class session. Because we will meet only once per week, and because the material we will cover builds cumulatively, missing class for any reason short of catastrophic illness or other major emergency is simply unacceptable. If you think you are likely to have trouble attending regularly, you should drop now rather than invite problems later. Moreover, you must be willing and able to commit a full three hours to each of our meetings. There will also be three video screenings during the semester--on February 20, April 3, and April 10 (all Thursdays), at 6:30 PM in EPB 107. Attendance is encouraged, but for those with conflicts, copies of the videos will be placed on reserve in the library's Media Center.

The next major requirement is that you do all the assigned reading and viewing, and come to class prepared to discuss it. I am committed to conducting this course as a genuine seminar, meaning that your consistent participation in communal dialogue--based on a focused and critical engagement with the course's issues, contexts, and materials--is absolutely essential to its success. An evaluation of your contribution to class discussion will form a major part of my assessment of your final grade.

Another major factor will be in-class presentations. Each class session will be divided into halves (with a break between them), and dialogue during each half will be kicked off by a student presentation. These presentations will involve two students each (for a total of four students per class session), and all students are required to participate in three presentations over the course of the semester. The purpose of the presentations is to initiate and orient discussion of the texts we have read in common, and thus presenters should focus their remarks on these texts and not ramble into digressions, introduce unfamiliar material, or otherwise wander off-topic. The particular focus can be expository (explaining some issue or implication in the texts), critical (arraigning the texts on the basis of factual or ideological problems), and/or quizzical (formulating questions to be addressed in our collective response to the texts). The two students participating in each presentation must consult with one another in advance, so that their work can be profitably divided up and their individual remarks coherently dovetailed. Each co-operative presentation must take no longer than 12 minutes (I will forcibly abridge them, if necessary), but their particular structure is up to the presenters: the two students can speak serially, or engage in critical dialogue, or whatever.

Moreover, to augment the oral presentations and to provide the class with material permitting us to formulate our questions or concerns in advance, all presenters must provide me, via e-mail, with a 1-page write-up of their ideas no later than 11 A.M. of the day they are slated to present. I will then circulate these write-ups (again, a total of four per week) to the entire class via an electronic bulletin board I will maintain including all of your e-mail addresses. Thus, even when you are not scheduled to present, you will be expected to check your e-mail sometime during Tuesday afternoons, to read over the day's four write-ups, and to come to class prepared to respond to our presenters. These presentations are crucially important--indeed, they will form the backbone of this seminar--so I urge you to take them seriously and to work diligently at them. A final note: since presenters' basic ideas will be available to the class in written form, the presentations themselves need not be overly discursive or detailed, but rather should involve an extemporaneous synthetic review of the individual arguments.

Of course, the major assignment for the semester is a 25-page seminar paper (or its equivalent in electronic form) incorporating original research. You are strongly encouraged to begin developing these projects as early as possible during the term, and obviously I will be available throughout the semester to help you refine your ideas, narrow your research, and gather your arguments into a final form. Our final two class sessions will be given over to discussions of your individual projects in roughly 20-minute blocks. These final presentations should involve a capsule overview of your project and an indication of any questions or concerns you may have regarding it, leaving time for feedback from the rest of the class. The paper itself will be due on Wednesday of exam week, in my box in EPB 308.

 

Grading: Final grades will be calculated as follows: class participation--20%; in-class presentations (including write-ups)--20%; research project--60%.

 

Schedule of Reading:

Week 1 (1/21). Metal Freaks

1st half:

 

Week 2 (1/28). The Machineries of Capital

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 3 (2/4). The Prehistory of Information Society

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 4 (2/11). Consuming Bodies

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 5 (2/18). Technology and the Orchestration of Masses

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 6 (2/25). Robots and Assembly Lines

1st half:

2nd half:

Week 7 (3/4). Cybernetics

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 8 (3/11). Mondo Media

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 9 (3/18). Simulation

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 10 (3/25). Spring Break

No class

 

Week 11 (4/1). Adrift in Cyberspace

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 12 (4/8). Gender and Erotic Telepresence

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 13 (4/15). Total War

1st half:

2nd half:

 

Week 14 (4/22). The Cyborg Body Politic

1st half:

2nd half:

Weeks 15-16 (4/29 & 5/6). Student Presentations

 

Links:

Principia Cybernetica Web

Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

Cyborgs and Postmodern Bodies

Cyberlit Page

 

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