1 - 10 of 18 results for: frankenstein

This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.

The human simulacrum has a long history in mythology, fairy tales and children¿s stories, as well as in the genres of horror and science fiction. This course explores synthetic human narratives in the cinema. Stories of artificially created life, living statues, automata, body snatchers, robots, cyborgs and electronic simulations all direct our attention to our assumed definitions of the human.The fantasies and anxieties that undergird these stories engage with such issues as labor, gender, sexuality, death, emotion, rationality, embodiment, consumerism, reproductive technologies, and power relations. Attention will also be given the relation of cinema¿s human simulacra to changing cinematic technologies. Films will include Metropolis, Pinocchio, Robocop, Bride of Frankenstein, The Golem, A.I., My Fair Lady, Her, Blade Runner, and the HBO iteration of Westworld. Readings will include essays, as well as some fiction and possibly comics.

This seminar will explore the vast array of horror comics. How does horror work in comics, as distinct from prose and cinema? How and why are non-moving images scary? The different narrational strategies of short stories, self-contained works, and continuing series will be explored, as will American, Japanese, and European approaches. Special attention will be given to Frankenstein, in novel, film, illustration, and comics. Example of such sub-genres as literary horror, horrific superheroes, cosmic (Lovecraftian) horror, ecological horror, as well as the horrors of bodies, sexuality, and adolescence will be encountered.nnStudents will read many comics, some comics theory, and will do an in-class presentation on a comic or topic of their choosing. The course is a seminar, so discussion will be continuous and required. Enrollment limited.

The course focus on multimedia installation and live performances. The theme of the course will be an offshoot of the campus wide celebration of the 200th year anniversary of the ¿Frankenstein¿ novel written by Mary Shelly. For the course the issues of advance medical science in the areas of artificial life forms, stem cell research, biological ethical questions, fictional and non fictional approaches and mythical creation stories will be included. Students will obtain an understanding of alternative ways to speak to issues using various art forms.

The focus of this class is to create an artwork that explores the relationship between creators and the `monsters¿ they create. The course explores the role of the artist as an innovator, experimenter, inventor, entrepreneur, and creative researcher. Students will perform a robust dissection and mapping of a modern technology and then emerge an artwork incorporating the constituent parts and informed by the dissection. n nAlmost anything that we create can become monstrous. One hopes for the best, but never knows just how it might play out. The story of humankind is partially a history of the twists and turns posited by technological innovation. The complex relationship between intention and context sometimes converge in mysterious and unpredictable ways resulting inn corruption in creative strategies, machines, architecture, designs and creative expression. n nThee class is inspired by the classic Gothic literature, Frankenstein, by Marry Shelly., a tragic story about Victor Frankenstein¿s failure to accept responsibility for the consequences of bringing new life into the world.

Ever since Frankenstein unleashed his monster onto the world in Mary Shelley¿s novel from 1818, the notion of ¿technology-out-of-control¿ has been a constant worry of modern societies, plaguing more optimistic visions of progress and innovation with fears that modern machines harbor potentials that, once set in motion, can no longer be tamed by their human makers. In this characteristically modern myth, the act of making ¿ and especially technological making ¿ gives rise to monsters. As a cautionary tale, we are therefore entreated to look before we leap, to go slow and think critically about the possible consequences of invention before we attempt to make something radically new. However, this means of approaching the issue of human-technological relations implies a fundamental opposition between thinking and making, suggesting a split between cognition as the specifically human capacity for reflection versus a causal determinism-without-reflection that characterizes the machinic or the technical. Nevertheless, recent media theory questions this dichotomy by asserting that technologies are inseparable from humans¿ abilities to think and to act in the world, while artistic practices undo the thinking/making split more directly and materially, by taking materials ¿ including technologies ¿ as the very medium of their critical engagement with the world. Drawing on impulses from both media theory and art practice, ¿critical making¿ names a counterpart to ¿critical thinking¿ ¿ one that utilizes technologies to think about humans¿ constitutive entanglements with technology, while recognizing that insight often comes from errors, glitches, malfunctions, or even monsters. Co-taught by a practicing artist and a media theorist, this course will engage students in hands-on critical practices involving both theories and technologies. Let¿s make a monster!

This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.

This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.

From self-driving cars to bots that alter democratic elections, artificial intelligence is growing increasingly powerful and prevalent in our everyday lives. Fiction has long been speculating about the techno-utopia¿and catastrophe¿that A.I. could usher in. Indeed, fiction itself presents us with a kind of A.I. in the many characters that speak and think in its pages. So what constitutes an ¿intelligence¿ within literature or technology? In either field, is it ever possible to overcome the problem of other minds? Is there an ultimate boundary that demarcates bodies from machines? This course will begin with Mary Shelley¿s Frankenstein (1818) and Edgar Allan Poe¿s ¿Maelzel¿s Chess Player¿ (1836), then proceed through works such as Samuel Butler¿s Erewhon (1872), Isaac Asimov¿s I, Robot (1950), Stanley Kubrick¿s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Stanford lecturer Scott Hutchins¿s A Working Theory of Love (2012), including a possible visit from Hutchins. Throughout, we will be asking ourselves what makes someone¿or something¿a person in our world today.