History of the Future (220-0-20)
Instructors
Kenneth L Alder
847/467-4038
Harris Hall 307
Meeting Info
Harris Hall L07: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
Our world is awash in predictions: climate models and pandemic models, political polls and betting pools, economic forecasts and military scenarios, plus the ever-approaching AI utopia and/or hellscape. This is hardly new. For millennia, people have been debating what the future holds. They haven't always been right, of course, but even their mistakes tell us a great deal about the times they were made. Ironically, studying the future is an excellent way to study the past—and reconsider our present. In this course we will study 5,000 years of prognosticators, from Mesopotamian astrologers to today's climate scientists. Along the way we will read sci-fi authors and religious millenarians, socialists and Afro-futurists, eugenicists and high-tech visionaries. We will also play in-class scenario games and read Covid predictions to get a feel for how the future unfolds in lived time. This course may not teach you to predict the future more accurately, but it will help you to better understand visions of things to come. Come explore the alternative worlds of futures past.
Learning Objectives
The course teaches students to assess changing methods of predicting the future, from divination and scenario-planning to epidemiology and climate models. It is also an exercise in Big History, covering 5,000 years of time, and exploring the challenges (and joys!) of the historical method, including the status of evidence, the role of contingency, the choice of temporal scale, and the virtues of epistemic modesty. Students will learn how different cultures have managed the risks of technological futurity (from famine relief and inoculation to eugenics and artificial intelligence) and how those risks have unevenly borne across the globe.
Evaluation Method
Three creative take-home essays (25% each), and participation/one-page response papers (25%)
Class Notes
Concentration: Americas, European, Global
Class Attributes
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
Associated Classes
DIS - Locy Hall 305: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM
DIS - Locy Hall 305: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - University Library 5746: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-343: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM
DIS - University Hall 218: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM
DIS - University Hall 412: Fri 2:00PM - 2:50PM