Ethics of Terraforming

Here is a link, and here is another link, to articles on the ethics of terraforming Mars. These are not required reading, but you should skim them to see how Robinson's Red Mars intersects with public debates and policy ideas in circulation outside of science fiction literature.

The Uncanny Valley

Elder-Care Bots

And here's that article I mentioned about elder-care bots in Japan. Of course, as you read the article, you realize that this innovation is intricately tied to social labor matters.

Robot Rights in South Korea

Here's where policy directly enters the conversation we were having today about Karel Capek's robots.

(I like that the tea-bot in the article photo looks a lot like Boba Fett!)

Breakfast has been taken over by the machines...

Greenpeace and the Machine

Follow this link to a series of recent posters that pit the human being against the machine in order to exist ecologically. In terms of narrative conflict (what you likely learned in high school as "Man vs Nature," "Man vs Himself," and "Man vs. Another Man or Other Men"), what is this? It's sort of Human Being vs Machine, but Machine as Prosthetic Stand-in for Other Human Beings...although since we also participate in this economic system, the Machine is also a Prosthetic Stand-in for Herself/Himself.
Plus, we get the Biblical register that we are already observing in many of our texts.

Thoughts??

Karel Capek's RUR more recently

If you watched or were at least aware of Joss Whedon's television series, Dollhouse, then Karel Capek's RUR was already filtering into your consciousness. The corporation in the series that has determined how to download, extract, and upload human consciousness/personality into any human body is named Rossum Corporation. The photo here was the mock-corporate-homepage that was operated by the television series to make the premise seem real, but the site was taken down after the series was canceled.

Assignment for Feb. 16th

Please google around to find a news story and/or a public policy document on the debates in the United States about evolution, creationism, and Intelligent Design in public education curricula. Just this past summer, for instance, the Texas State Board of Education passed new policy about its textbooks in relation to this debate.

Please post the link to the story/document on your blog, and come to class on Thursday the 16th ready to put what you found into conversation with Paley, Darwin, Butler, and Dawkins.

"The Science Fiction Effect"

Follow this link, if you like, to an interesting piece about the ways science fiction shapes public attitudes to science. The author, Laura Kahn, claims that the history of SF, including two of our novels, is too full of scientists endangering themselves and others, and what we need now is more SF with scientist-heroes to inspire more public interest in and support of techno-scientific advances.

Blog writing for Feb 14th

We discussed a lot of elements of Mary Shelley's novel: reading and the efficacy of text, Natural Philosophy, the tricky language of the Preface, landscape--shaping writing and life-creating as well as the sublime, reproduction, the Victor-Monster dialectic, the Victor-Walton dialectic, and more.

Now that we've had these good classroom discussions, I want you to spend some time synthesizing and processing what you take away from our reading, thinking, discussing in terms of how to explain Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in terms of a cautionary tale regarding techno-science. What do you think the novel itself really has to say about techno-science? Please link your assessment to specific moments in the text--you should use some actual quotes--and explain your interpretation thought process carefully and concisely.

350-450 words. Please post before class on Valentine's Day, February 14th.

"Frankenfood"

Here's an unusual invocation of the Frankenmeme in a positive register about techno-scientific engineering of food. Doesn't her enthusiasm combined with the eco-facts she presents make you hunger for this future?

"Firelight"

Here's the short video we watched in class today. Excellent job catching all of the cultural accretions to "Frankenstein" that have made a monster of Mary Shelley's novel.

Master-Slave Dialectic Reading for Feb. 9th

Everyone likes a challenge, right?
Please follow this link to the chapter of G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit called "Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage." This will likely be the most challenging text we read this semester, but don't worry, we'll work in class on what Hegel is saying and how it relates to the narrative of Frankenstein and to ecological thinking more broadly. Just do your best to read it and come with questions.

First Blog Writing, Due February 7th

For your first blog post, please write 250-350 words on the short film "Mr. Green." What does this text suggest about the governmental prioritization of ecological issues? What does it suggest about making ecological change within a democracy? You might think of the two quotes the film includes on this point. Finally, what does the film suggest about techno-scientific solutions to ecological challenges?

Please post your blog writing by 9:30am on Tuesday.

Also, be sure to read the assigned portion of Frankenstein and come ready to discuss the novel.