Expository Writing (105-0-20)
Topic
Engineering Fiction: Writing with Machines and Met
Instructors
Govind Narayan Ponnuchamy
Meeting Info
Annenberg Hall G29: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
Technology is a word with continually shifting meanings. Beyond the physical technologies that surround us every day, ranging from handheld devices to giant airplanes, "technology" also possesses immense metaphoric uses. Literature, a realm for imaginative experiments with technology, is a productive site to investigate all the things that the word technology might imply. In this course, we will read texts including early modern drama, nineteenth century realism, science fiction, and contemporary short stories and cinema, to ponder over how literature thinks about technology. What power dynamics do different technologies mobilize? What do we mean when we say that science and technology are ideologically neutral? How do vectors like race, gender, and empire both rely on and behave as technologies? And How does fiction contextualize and provide a more robust view of technology's rationales of convenience, speed, efficiency? We will study not only the arguments/plots/themes of our texts, but also their formal and rhetorical strategies (their own technologies). Finally, we will think about how we can do the same - use the technology of language to identify and delineate an audience, make an argument, and support that argument by using evidence. In other words, in this course we will use the lexicon, history, and politics of technology to become energetic thinkers, efficient writers, and empathetic thinking engines.
Class Materials (Required)
Charles Dickens. Hard Times, Penguin. ISBN - 978-0-141-43967-9
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein, Broadview ISBN - 978-155481103
All other materials will be made available on canvas.