First-Year Writing Seminar (104-8-1)

Topic

The Human and Machine in German Culture

Instructors

Robert Ryder
847/491-8295
Kresge 3-327

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-343: Mon, Wed, Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

From automata to cyborgs, this course explores ways in which mechanical devices have served as models to gain a deeper understanding of the human and nature in German literature, philosophy, film, and music. While the course is structured around the short prose and poetry of Eichendorff, Kafka, Wiener, Ernst Jünger and Fritz Lang, we will also read excerpts from significant texts by La Mettrie, Descartes, Heidegger, Benjamin, and Friedrich Kittler. The course material will not only echo similar concerns and contexts, but will also allow us to ask significant questions that are as historically determined as they are philosophically oriented: how does the eighteenth-century automaton become a central symbol for the debate over the mind/body relationship? What is the relationship between the human worker and the machine, and the machine and the diabolical? In what way does the introduction of the machine redefine both "labor" and "war" in the twentieth century? In what ways does the writing process take on mechanical attributes, from the typewriter to Kafka's torture machine? Finally, all these questions and concerns are inflected in the latest chapter of this genealogy between human and machine: Artificial Intelligence.

Registration Requirements

Restricted to only 1st year students.

Learning Objectives

Beyond to course content, this spring quarter freshman seminar is also intended to help you learn how to become fully participating Weinberg students, and especially to further develop your writing skills.

Evaluation Method

Attendance, Class participation, Homework, Paper, final, Readings, Writing assignments

Class Materials (Required)

Jünger, Ernst. Glass Bees. (New York Review Books Classics) ISBN-13: 978-0940322554
Keun, Imgard. Gilgi. One of Us. (Penguin Modern Classics) ISBN-13: 978-0241391808

Class Attributes

WCAS Writing Seminar

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Weinberg First Year Seminars are only available to first-year students.
Add Consent: Department Consent Required