Science Fiction, Technology, and Film
Spring 2020 — English 384 — Dr. Rawal
Course Description:
Science fiction is the literature of the human species encountering change. Such changes can arrive in a myriad of ways including, but not limited to, scientific discoveries, technological innovations, natural events, or societal shifts. Science fiction answers questions such as, What if?” or “If this goes on…,” and is, therefore, sometimes more interested with exploring ideas than developing plot or character. Etymologically, science fiction is about scientific discovery and technological change.
Scholars have turned to the word ‘speculative fiction’ in an effort to focus less on the science and more on the speculation of what could happen. Students who successfully complete the course should be able to:
- to recognize and thoughtfully explore the underlying philosophical or social issues presented in film;
- discuss the technological changes implemented in the twentieth century and the human reactions to them, including:
- the relationships between technology, race, class, gender, and power;
- the impact of technology on individuals’ feelings of humanity, identity, free will;
- the reactions to the powers wielded by technology;
- the threat of losing control of technology both to technology itself (the Frankenstein syndrome) or to more powerful others;
- the struggle between technology and the “natural” and the problem of the simulacrum;
- the impact of media and other technologies on human thought;
- the political uses of the powers of technology; and
- the idea of technological “progress.”
- relate major events in the history of filmmaking;
- discuss interdisciplinary connections;
- critically “read” film and other related visual media;
- analyze the complex interrelationships between film, technology, and society.
Assignments:
30% — Papers: Due weeks 3, 5, 7, 10, & 12 (Check this out for inspo) and HERE is the link for the grading rubric.
30% — Scripts: Write your own science/speculative fiction piece (short film, show, play) — 5 pages of dialogue and setting description. plus 3–4 pages of analysis, explaining how your work fits into the science fiction community. Due week 14
20% — Final Project: using your own script create a 3–5 minute film OR write an 8–10 page analysis paper of your own script, making reference to at least 3 films we have discussed in class. Due on Finals Day (screening party)
20% — Attendance: includes pop quizzes, in-class discussion, etc.
Week 1 (Jan 21) — Introduction; Can cameras only see white people?
If the medium is the message? ~ The Shirley Card (named after the Kodak model who was on the first color reference card) ~ How was color film originally biased? ~ What gender biases are built into technology today? ~ Get Out (2017; Dir. Jordan Peele)
Screen: Stepford Wives (1975)
Week 2 (Jan 28) — “Siri and Alexa Reinforce Gender Bias, U.N. Finds” — NYT
If the medium is the message, then what does that say about Alexa, Siri, and Cortana? ~ Stepford Wives Comparison: 1975 to 2004 ~ Patriarchal Anxieties: will men lose control of women or will women run out of control
Screen: The Perfect Woman (1949); Frankenstein (1931); The Bride of Frankenstein (1935); Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956; Dir. Don Siegel); Ruby Sparks (2012; Dir. Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton — trailer)
Week 3 (Feb 4) — “The living likeness of my ivory girl.” — Ovid (Metamorphoses)
Judith Halberstam, “Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine” Feminist Studies Vol. 17, №3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 439–460 (22 pages)
Screen: Her (2013; Dir. Spike Jonze); Lars and the Real Girl (2007; Craig Gillespie — trailer)
Week 4 (Feb 11) — Dolls, Sexbots…and the Rules of Robots
Selections from Julie Wosk’s “My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves” (2015, Rutgers University Press)
Paul A. Abrahm and Stuart Kenter, “Tik-Tok and the Three Laws of Robotics”
Screen: Ex Machina (2015; Dir. Alex Garland); Automata (2014; Dir. Gabe Ibáñez)
Week 5 (Feb 18) — ‘The cyborg has no origin story…’
Donna Harroway, A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)
Screen: I Am Mother (2019; Dir. Grant Sputore)
Week 6 (Feb 25): The Revolution Will Be Science Fiction First, Then Reality…
Near future science fiction ~ Global science fiction: less about technology, more about the narrative ~ Dystopia Studies
Ursula k. Le Guin, The Day Before the Revolution (1975)
Donald F. Theall, The Art of Social-Science Fiction: The Ambiguous Utopian Dialectics of Ursula K. Le Guin (1975)
David L. Porter, The Politics of Le Guin’s Opus (1975)
Author(s):
Metropolis (1927; Germany)
The Four Kinds of Dystopia of the 20th Century
Week 7 (Mar 3) — Margaret Thatcher, Is That You? Neoliberalism and Bong Joon-ho
shoe throwing as protest/Bush in Iraq 2008 ~ what is neoliberalism? ~ what is a neoliberal dystopia?
Snowpiercer (2013; Dir. Bong Joon-ho)
Week 8 (Mar 10) — Futures and Fundamentalisms
Leila (2019; Dirs. Deepa Mehta, Shankar Raman, & Pawan Kumar — Netflix)
Read: Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums
Week 9 (Mar 17) — SPRING BREAK
Week 10 (Mar 24) — COVID-19
Leila (2019; Dirs. Deepa Mehta, Shankar Raman, & Pawan Kumar — Netflix)
Read: Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums
Week 11 (Mar 31) — When Class Becomes Race, When Race Becomes Class
How can science fiction help us to understand intersectionality? ~ Dystopia (‘an ideal society that has gone terribly wrong’) or tragic irony?
District 9 (2009; Dir. Neill Blomkamp — Internet, Hulu)
Watch on Kanopy: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares
Week 12 (Apr 7) — Save the bees?
Environmental Dystopia ~ Science Fiction as critique of elite, English society
‘Hated in the Nation’, Black Mirror (Season 3, Episode 6; 2016 — Netflix)
Read: E.M. Forester’s “The Machine Stops” (1909)
Week 13 (Apr 14) — A Match Made in Dystopia
Love and Dystopia ~ Is reality television science fiction? ~ What do Marx and Engels say about Marriage?
The Lobster (2015; Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos — Netflix)
Married at First Sight (2014-present; Lifetime Production)
Read: The Communist Manifesto (1847)
Week 14 (Apr 21) — If we want a fully automated luxury experience, the robots have to stop revolting in our stories.
Will our imaginations of AI ever be able to escape the ‘relations of production’ narrative?
Westworld (2016; Prod. J. J. Abrams — HBO)
Read: Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto (1847)
Week 15 (Apr 28) — The Happiest Place on Earth
colonialism ~ postcolonialism ~ master/slave relationships ~ free will ~ simulacra/simulation ~ hyperreal
Westworld (1973; Dir. Michael Crichton)
For Marx/Engels, capitalism translates to the exploitation of workers. In this case, the worker is oppressed from having to work long hours, under poor conditions, and for low pay. With this, the rhetoric of revolution does not reach beyond worker’s rights.
Marx/Engels were not the only people who were critical of capitalism. Other thinkers believe that capitalism relies on the exclusion, incarceration, and excommunication — or the othering — of people to create/produce the worker. In this latter case, capitalism translates to the creating a code of normality. And with this, the rhetoric of revolution opens up to include the marginalization of all people — not just workers — and creates a space to begin to consider beyond the capitalist/communist binary of work in and of itself.
In both capitalism and communism work and labor are gifts to be given. In capitalism, the worker, in turn, works and their labor becomes gifted to the capitalist. In communism, the worker’s labor is meant to be gifted to the community as a whole (there is no fight to open up the idea of work and labor). In both cases, the worker gifts their own labor.
If capitalism is understood as a code of normality and this code becomes the target of revolution and change, then it is possible to first tear down the hierarchical systems that produce the castes of workers in the first place.
