IDS 4930 Technology and Culture

Instructors: Dan White (MHC 146)

Laura Barrett (MHC 147)

Course Description: In the late twentieth century, we tend to equate technology with sophisticated engineering and complicated gadgetry. Technology allows stealth bombers and super computers to run. The wheel, such a staple of modern life, hardly seems complex enough to be called a technological wonder, but it changed the course of human development. During the semester, we will examine various kinds of technology, including such imaginary ones as magic, and consider their impact on culture. Subjects to be explored will include medicine, transportation, war, nuclear development, journalism, photography, film, visual arts, music, and computerization.

Prerequisite: Honors Standing

Required Texts: Bacon, The New Atlantis; Shakespeare, The Tempest; Shelley, Frankenstein;

Sontag, On Photography; Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village; Gibson, Neuromancer; DeLillo, White Noise

Course Policies: Attendance, promptness and class participation are mandatory. Excessive absences will result in a lower grade. It is essential that everyone be on time for class and remain for the scheduled period.

Grades will be determined as follows:

Four response papers (300-500 words) 30%

One formal essay (1250 to 1500 words) 40%

Oral report* 20%

Participation 10%

*Beginning in the sixth week of the semester, students will begin presenting collaborative oral reports. Assignments will be made in the first few weeks of the semester.

Plagiarism: You must acknowledge the source of any idea in your paper that is not your own in a footnote at the end of the paper. Any words directly quoted from a book must be put in quotation marks and footnoted. Failure to follow this procedure constitutes plagiarism, a very serious academic offense which will result in failing this course.

Please note: If you have a physical, psychiatric/emotional, medical or learning disability that may affect your ability to carry out the work of the course or that will require extra time on examinations, please notify me in the first two weeks of the semester so that we can make appropriate arrangements. I would also urge you to contact the staff in the Disabled Student Services office (DSS), Humanities 133 (632-6748). DSS will review your concerns and determine with you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation of disability is confidential.

8/25: Introduction to class; Bacon, The New Atlantis

9/1: Shakespeare, The Tempest

Reaction Paper Due

9/8: Forbidden Planet

9/15: Shelley, Frankenstein

9/22: Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (selections); Sontag, On Photography; Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey (selections), Trachtenberg, Classic Essays on Photography (selections); Willa Cather, "Consequences"

Reaction Paper Due

9/29: Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

10/6: Chaplin, Modern Times

10/13: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Marx, The Machine and the Garden (selections)

Mumford, Technics and Civilization (selections)

10/20: Pynchon, "Entropy," The Crying of Lot 49, V. (selections); Adams, The Autobiography

of Henry Adams (selections)

Reaction Paper Due

10/27: Lang, Metropolis

11/3: McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village; Wiener, God and Golem, Inc.

(selections); Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

Preliminary material for final essay due (thesis, opening paragraph, outline)

11/10: Scott, Blade Runner

11/17: Gibson, Neuromancer

Reaction Paper Due

11/24: Miracle Mile

12/1: DeLillo, White Noise

Final Essay Due