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Comparative Literature 146: Robots
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This course will consider robots, robotics, and artificial intelligence in literature and art, in order to explore the following questions: What distinguishes artificial intelligence from human intelligence? What distinguishes the artificially-constructed robot body from the human form? How has the increased computational power of the current age impinged (or not) upon notions of subjectivity and identity? What cultural anxieties and optimisms about mechanization play out in expressions of robotics and AI in literature and film? What, in the final analysis, distinguishes the human animal from its mechanized metallic progeny—or are we, as Andy Clark suggests in his latest book, “natural-born cyborgs”?

Note: If you are a student with a disability and would like to discuss special academic accommodations, please contact me by e-mail or during office hours.

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Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot.
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy
Kochalka, James. Monkey versus Robot
Course Reader (Available at the UCSB Bookstore)

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Grade Breakdown
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Participation (physical) 10 %
Participation (virtual--via the online class forum) 5
Response Papers (1 page, single-spaced), Discussion Questions, & Quizzes 15
Web/Creative Project 10
Presentation 10 (your choice of 1 text to show and tell)
Mid-term Exam 25
Final Project 25
Assignment Guidelines

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Late papers & Incomplete Work
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Late papers will be penalized a full letter grade for each day past due. You are, however, allowed to turn in one late paper, no questions asked, within two days of the original deadline. This does not apply for the final project.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Attendance
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Since this class will offer frequent opportunities for in-class writing, peer revision, and group discussion, attendance is mandatory. It is generally not possible to make up missed class work.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Plagiarism Warning
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Materials submitted to fulfill academic requirements must represent a student’s own efforts. Any act of academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Readings :
Theoretical Texts
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Clark, Andy. Natural-Born Cyborgs. (Excerpt).
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny,” and “A Note upon the Mystic Writing Pad.”
Haraway, Donna. “Cyborg Manifesto.”
Hayles, Katherine N. How We Became Posthuman. (Excerpt).
Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology.”
Latour, Bruno. “On Technical Mediation.”
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage (Excerpt).
Turing, Alan. “Computing Machine Intelligence.”
Wiener, Norbert. Popular articles on the subject of cybernetics.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Primary Sources
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“Genesis” from the Old Testament
“The Golem” (summary)
“Talos” (from Apollonius of Rhodes’ “Argonautika”)
Ovid’s “Pygmalion and Galatea”
Ray Bradbury’s “Marionettes, Inc.”
Lester del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”
Hoffman, E.T.A. “The Sand-Man.”
CL Moore’s “No Woman Born”
Pat Murphy’s “His Vegetable Wife”
James Tiptree’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged in”

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\ Film/Television
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Metropolis. Fritz Lang (dir.).
Blade Runner. Ridley Scott (dir).
Robot Stories. Greg Pak (dir).
Episode from Start Trek TNG: “The Borg”

\\------------------------------------------------------------------------------// Schedule of Readings Due: Subject to Change!
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Week One: August 7, 8, 9
Topic: Classical “Robots” and Early Automata

Monday: Introductions, Course Expectations, and Assignments

Tuesday: Heidegger (in reader)
“Icarus” in Book 8 of Ovid’s Met. (http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.8.eighth.html)
Bruegel’s “Fall of Icarus”
(http://www.people.virginia.edu/~djr4r/icarus.html)
About Icarus Wikip. entry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(mythology))
Book IV of Apollonius’ Argonautika
(http://omacl.org/Argonautica/book4.html)
Image of Talos
(http://www.lisaswanstrom.net/images/talos.jpg)

Wednesday: “Pygmalion & Galatea”
(http://www.tesc.edu/~rprice/pygmalion.htm)
About Pygmalion & Galatea
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(mythology))
First 2 Chapters of “Genesis”
(http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/RsvGene.html)
“The Legend of the Golem”
(http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/golem.html)
About the Golem (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Golem.html)

Week Two: August 14, 15, 16
Topic: Robots and the Mind/Body Problem

Monday: Descartes (entire book, with emphasis on the 6th meditation)
Tuesday: "Clay" (from Greg Pak's Robot Stories)Kochalka (entire book), Murphy (in reader)

Wednesday: In-class screening of Blade Runner

Week Three: August 21, 22, 23
Topic: Artificial Memory and Intelligence

Monday: Freud’s “A Note upon the Mystic Writing Pad” (in reader), “An Old Robot’s Two Times Two” (p. 24 of reader), & Blade Runner

Tuesday: Hoffman’s “The Sand-Man,” Freud’s “The Uncanny” (both in reader)

Wednesday: Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence) (http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html), Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (excerpts: Read the Introduction, "Robbie," "Liar!," "Evidence," and "The Evitable Conflict.")

Week Four: August 28, 29, 30
Topic: The Robot and the Cyborg

Monday: Mid-term Exam

Tuesday: Watch The Borg

Wednesday: Clark’s Natural Born Cyborgs (in reader), Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” (in reader), & The Borg

 
Week Five: September 4, 5, 6
Topic: (Gender) and the Robot Body

Monday: Ray Bradbury’s “Marionettes, Inc.” (in reader)
Lester del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy,” (e-reserve)
“Learning about Machine Sex” (in reader)

Tuesday: Tiptree’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged in” (in reader)
CL Moore’s “No Woman Born” (e-reserve)

Wednesday: Metropolis

Week Six: September 11, 12, 13
Topic: The Robot and the “Posthuman”

Monday: Wiener (in reader)
McLuhan (e-reserve)

Tuesday: Hayles (in reader)
Latour (in reader)

Wednesday: Presentation of final topics/wrap-up session

Final Project Due in my mailbox and online (if appropriate) on 9/15 before 5 p.m.