FYSP 098 - Living Machines: Puppet, Robot, Statue, Clock

FC ARHU WINT

4 credits
This course explores “the human” in relationship to discourses that imagine its limits, especially what it means to bring the inanimate (puppets, robots, statues, golems, clockworks) to “life.” We will engage with literary, visual, philosophical, mythical, cinematic, and scientific ideas about the relationship between matter and motion, body and spirit, human and machine, human and god. Authors include Ovid, Lucretius, Shakespeare, Hoffman, Freud, Shelley, Haraway, Chabon, Rilke, and Philip K. Dick; screenings includeThe Matrix ,The Golem ,Frankenstein ,Metropolis ,Hugo , andBlade Runner . We will range from physics to metaphysics, from engineers to magicians, from epistemology to gizmology. Off-campus field trips required.