Dr. Grace Dillon. 725-8144/ dillong@pdx.edu CH 117Q. Office Hours: R 4-6 p.m. and by appointment.
Class meets MW 11:00-12:15 p.m./CH 201
Mentor
Section UNST 136C-001 MW 1:00-1:50 p.m. / CH 145
Mentor Section
UNST 136C-002 MW 3:00-3:50 p.m. / CH 145
Mentor Section
UNST 136C-003 MW 4:00-4:50 p.m. / CH 149
Peer
Mentor: Mick Khan holbrook@pdx.edu
Web Site Link:
http://www.web.pdx.edu/~dillong/cyborg/
Being
the valley of the universe,
Ever
true and resourceful,
Return
to the state of the uncarved block.
As Dani Cavallaro has pointed out, "[t]he figure of the cyborg encapsulates many contemporary anxieties about the encounter of the natural and the artificial and the idea that there are no clear divisions between the non-human and the human, the technological and the biological, the original and the copy. In doing so it simultaneously questions many conventional assumptions and boundaries." (Cyberpunk and Cyberculture 44) In The Cyborg Handbook (3), Chris Hables Gray, Steven Mentor, and Heidi Figueora-Sarriera suggest:
Cyborg technologies can be restorative, in that they restore lost functions and replace lost organs and limbs; they can be normalizing, in that they restore some creatures to indistinguishable normality; they can be ambiguously reconfiguring, creating posthuman creatures equal to but different from humans and they can be enhancing, the aim of most military and industrial research, and what those with cyborg envy or even cyborg-philia fantasize.
This course investigates both twentieth and twenty first centuries revolutions in information technology and genetics that will profoundly alter human experience in the coming years. We will explore the impact of computers and genetic engineering on our lives and on diverse cultures by looking at changes in relationships, work privacy, and personal responsibility. From workplace surveillance to mail retrieval, from prenatal genetic screening to genetic cloning, from human consciousness to artificial intelligence, we can examine the dangers, opportunities and ethical ambiguities inherent in new technologies. Through stories, films, case studies, field research, art, science fiction, and original projects, we will amplify and elaborate on these arenas of inquiry with our own questions and ideas.
The initial year of the university experience should expose you to new ways of seeing and exploring the world, and from this personal inquiry you should be prepared to choose a major field of concentration. In this course, we will approach cyborg images and millennial topics from a number of perspectives. Literary, anthropological, and cinematic theorists, for instance, might study the fin-de-siecle or appropriation of aesthetic transmutations in myths, novels, film, poetry or short stories. Does their approach differ from or complement how historians and artists would proceed? Will an environmental scientist apply chaos theory in the same way that a literary critic would? Professionals in the sciences and in the humanities in fact can help each other to understand the complexities of cyborgology which deploys simultaneously scientific and fictional discourses and in doing so can gain an appreciation for other disciplines. Embarking on the Cyborg/Millennial inquiry will involve you in this journey of personal and professional discovery.
This spring we will focus on poetry, the implications of the digital divide, artificial intelligence, chaos-complexity theory, nanotechnology, and science fiction especially cybernetic literature and cyberculture. As we head into the 21st century and contemplate the transformations in questioning what it means to be human or post-human or "more than human", this exploration of our own continuous re-shaping and metamorphosis provides a rich forum for an exchange of ideas about communitas, the potential for cyberracism, and the post considerations of cyberpunk. We will focus on transformations such as those between reality and virtual reality, between fantasy and science fiction, between film noir and film disney, between role-playing and engaging in video games, and, finally, between the fragmented postmodern identity and oppositional "postcolonial cyborgs" as Joseba Gabilando has suggested. In the politics of race and technology , the cyborg is not only a hybrid of machine and organism, it is also a racial hybrid. Like Gloria Anzaldua’s mestiza, the figure of a dark-haired woman of indeterminate race sitting at a computer keyboard in the cover art of Donna Haraway’s Simians, Cyborgs, and Women represents an avatar of ethnic and racial hybridity. Beth E. Kolko, etc. in Race In Cyberspace reference this image and describe how it depicts the cyborg’s politics as one of inclusivity, "and as we all become cyborgs in the age of high technologies such as the Internet, so too must race be considered as part of the mix of hybrid identities that mark our selves at the end of the millennium." (8)
GENERAL POLICY: Be sure to hand in all pre-writing, annotated notes on essays/stories, and rough drafts with your final draft for each essay. These, too, are part of your work-in-progress. One grade point per class meeting missed will be deducted from each late assignment.
Requirements: Projects: Video, Tech Survey, or E-Zine editing and Community-Based-Learning: 20 %; Electronic portfolio: 15%; Attendance and Participation in sessions (includes group workshops, discussions or in-class journals): 15%; Revised Film Essay (1) and Dialogue-Response Journals (3) : 20%; Essay on Diamond Age: 20%; Creative project: 10%.
Video, Tech Survey, or E-Zine Project: See your handout from the winter quarter for further details and also re-check the sign-up sheet for the project you signed up for. The video and tech survey must be completed in time for the Tech Fair, May 1. The E-Zine will be compiled by T 6/4 for the showcasing in class. Note that you individually though will document and reflect upon your 10-20 hours of community-based-learning that you engaged in over the past year. This will be the bulk of the E-Zine for the class. Be creative, have fun, and select an area that you are strongly an advocate for.
Dialogue Response Journals (3): In these two-three page typewritten journals, you will respond to assigned writing prompts relating to the readings and generally the topics noted in class: Specific (and possible) directions will be provided for you. These responses will aid you in reflecting on the partnered discussions or quick workshops at the beginning of sessions and in synthesizing critical theoretical material or in amplifying a new direction you were alerted to after pondering the material. In sorting out the meaning of each article or assigned reading provide your own concrete cultural examples that are relevant to the areas noted for that particular session. Feel free to do "field work" if pertinent to the subject. For example, why not head toward and become involved in a poetry beat if you are analyzing contemporary poetry?
Film Essay (Revised from Fall version): You will complete a film essay that this time incorporates scholarly film analysis of the film you selected in the fall. See former handout for suggestions of film approaches to experiment with.
Essay on Diamond Age: You will complete a researched and documented essay on Neal Stephenson's novel with free rein to incorporate any articles from your CyberReader, any readings in your packet, or to expand on forms of science covered in-class based on a topic that is self-selected. This novel lends itself to nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and chaos or complexity theory.
Creative project: Here's your chance to imaginatively create a project that reflects perhaps quite closely the ideas of transformation we are engaged in this quarter. You will take any of the forms of science looked at this past year such as chaos theory, artificial intelligence, cloning, nanotechnologyand biogenetic engineering and "interpret" it through its metamorphosis (which, according to Vitanza, equals morphing which equals "a transformation, as by magic or sorcery") into any creative project whether a painting, a multi-media exploration, a series of poems, a (video-taped?) "ractive" or piece of performance art, a creative writing story, or a musical composition. With cyberculture on the horizon, feel free to redefine inventively what that creative project may actually involve. Animated cartoons after experimenting with cyberware?
Electronic Portfolio: One end goal of the University Studies program is to produce a portfolio showcasing your activities and performances throughout your college career. The portfolio should showcase your best work over time and across genres. We'll continue this portfolio here in the final quarter of freshman inquiry; it will include samples of your writing and miscellaneous creative or imaginative work along with reflections on how you produced the work and its significance to you. Continuing to follow the format given in class last quarter, you will revise and amplify the web page that encompasses the projects you have done so far in this year-long course and demonstrate your work in the final week of class. Think of this as not only a potential re-write and re-visualization of works-in-progress for your final portfolio but also as an opportunity to set up a scholarly-oriented web page on-line.
ATTENDANCE: Because this class emphasizes group workshops and interactive discussions, absences are discouraged. Each absence after the first three lowers your grade one level. If you miss more than two weeks' worth of classes, you should consider dropping the course and retaking it when your schedule permits. If you arrive late or leave early, you may be counted absent for the day. Please notify Lacy or me if you must miss class for some reason.
REQUIRED TEXTS: Neal Stephenson, Diamond Age (DA), New York: Ace Books, 1984. Victor J. Vitanza, CyberReader(CR), 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996, rptd. 1999. Continue the Diana Hacker Handbook or use of any other convenient current handbook. Packet of readings available at Smart Copy (Pck.)
Optional Texts: Any continued novels by Stephenson such as Snow Crash or his later wonderful puzzle, Cryptonomicon. For exploring the digital divide, a solid starting point is William Wresch’s Disconnected: Haves and Have-nots in the Information Age, 1996. A excellent collection of poetically cybernetic stories is Walter Mosley’s Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World, 2001. And who can resist the newly reprinted edition and essays on Vernor Vinge’s True Names? The undulating poetic prose of Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and other stories along with her House on Mango Street (more often connected to cybernetic ideas) can prove to be irresistible as well.
COURSE SCHEDULE: The day-to-day schedule follows. Note that you should complete
reading assignments by the day on which they are listed.
WEEK ONE:
M 3/31 Introduction to course.
W 4/2 Poetry. Nature and Artifice. Angelou, Coleridge, McKay, Musgrave, Salter, and Yeats. (handouts in-class)
Mentor Session 1: Brainstorming for individual CBL projects.
Mentor Session 2: Poetry Contest: Ten Word Draw.
WEEK TWO:
M 4/7 Musical song lyrics as poetry. Dylan, U2, and Beck lyrics. (handouts in-class)
W 4/9 Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Good Trip." (Pck.) Keats' "La Belle dam sans merci." (Pck.) Dreamwork Theory.
Mentor Session 1: Mike "reading" of own poetry or selected poem/song lyric at café TBA.
Mentor Session 2: Bring in journaled dreams of the past two weeks for a dreamwork workshop.
WEEK THREE:
M 4/14 CR Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto." (108) and Scott Bukatman, "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." (196) 2-3 page dialogue journal response due; topic: poetry or music.
W 4/16 Guest Lecture: Professor Leslie Batchelder on German hip-hop and musical appropriation.
Mentor session 1:
Mentor session 2:
WEEK FOUR:
M 4/21 Sandra Cisneros’ "Woman Hollering Creek" and "The Eyes of Zapata." (Pck.) Chela Sandoval’s "cyborg consciousness" and mestizaje.
W 4/23 CR, Sherry Turkle, "Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality." (208) Hans Moravec, "The Senses Have No Future." (280) and Margaret Wertheim, "The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace." (298) Fragmented postmodern identities and the road to unreality. 2-3 page dialogue journal response on Cisneros, Keats, or Le Guin due.
Mentor Session 1:
Mentor Session 2: CR,
WEEK FIVE:
M 4/28 Lisa Nakamura, "Where do you want to go today?" (Pck.) Corporate ads and racial identities. Try to find a destabilizing ad to bring to class today but do bring an ad to analyze in-class.
May 1st: Technology Fair: Ethical Video project, tech survey, and selected snazzy web pages can be displayed at this fair.
W 4/30 Film Essay revision discussion. See former handout and read Lynda K. Byndtzen’s "Monstrous Mothers’ Race in Cyberspace" for academic sample of film analysis. (Pck.) Film clips.
Mentor Session 1: Checking the academic sites of Donna Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak. Bridging the Digital Divide. Jan. 99. Project 2000. http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/Papers/race/science.html
Mentor Session 2: Evaluating two web sites of your choice on the digital divide or on the environmental impact of current agricultural practices. See PCUN’s web site, for example.
WEEK SIX:
M 5/5 You should finish reading Stephenson's Diamond Age(DA) by today. Romantic influences, the postmodern vs. epic hero, and the 4th Discontinuity.
W 5/7 DA cont. Confucianism and artificial intelligence. 2-3 page dialogue journal response on the digital divide or Diamond Age due.
Mentor Session 1:.
Mentor Session 2: Session for web page re-designing.
WEEK SEVEN:
M 5/12 DA cont. Change and the Strange Attractor of Chaos-Complexity Theory.
W 5/14 DA cont. Nanotechnology.
Mentor Session 1: Video games, role-playing, and chatrooms. Let's play!
Mentor Session 2: Work on creative project or on final portfolio.
WEEK EIGHT:
M 5/19 Joe Lockard’s "Babel Machines and Electronic Universalism." (Pck.)
W 5/21 CR, Nakamura (442) and Jeffrey A. Ow’s "The Revenge of the Yellowfaced Cyborg: The Rape of Digital Geishas and the Colonization of Cyber-Coolies in 3D Realms’ Shadow Warrior." (Pck.)
Mentor Session 1: E-Zine compilation. CBL reflections are due today.
Mentor Session 2: E-Zine follow-up.
WEEK NINE:
M 5/26 Holiday. Campus closed. CR, Kantrowitz (176) Cross-dressing, multiple personalities, and role-playing. X-Files episode and Cronenberg's Existenz. How do these artifacts compare with your "real" virtual experience in the chatroom?
W 5/28 David Crane’s "In Medias Race." (Pck.) Cyberthemes revisited in film.Essay on Diamond Age due.
Mentor Session 1: Work on portfolio reflections.
Mentor Session 2: Follow-up on Creative Projects.
WEEK TEN:
M 6/2 E-Zine, Web Page, or Creative Project showcasing. E-Zine due.
W 6/4 Creative project showcasing. Revised Film Essay due. Creative Project due.
Mentor Session 1: Web page final editing.
Mentor Session 2: Plan beach party. That's a wrap!
Final Exam Schedule: Wednesday, June 11, 10:15 a.m.-12:05 p.m. Portfolio due. Beach party on Friday, June 13.