ENGL 093B. The Cyborg Apocalypse

s the divide between human and machine becoming harder to maintain? From the Golem of folk tales to Frankenstein, and now chat bots, the concept of the cyborg is long-lived, appearing across popular, religious, and scientific imaginations. As technology becomes more personal, the cyborg becomes less alien, and the prospect of our own transformation into technologically enhanced organisms seems imminent. In this course we will investigate posthumanism through a critical look at cybernetics in our culture, examining representations in media such as literature, film, television, advertising, video games, and comics. Students will research the current state of artificial intelligence and robotic science and use this to inform their readings of the cyborg in our society. Critiques will be framed through the lens of gender, race, disability, and labor using the theory of scholars from across the disciplines, and the class will engage in multimodal research projects using the Makerspace on campus.
20th/21st c.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Spring 2027. Licastro.
Catalog chapter: English Literature
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature

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