GER 375 - Thinking Machines: Androids and Automatons in Science and Literature

At the onset of modernity, the human being acquired a new kind of shadow: the android or machine-man, an automaton capable of replicating behaviors that had previously been the exclusive domain of humans. Since then, the question of what a human being is has been closely bound up with the question of what an automaton isn’t. This course tracks the interwoven fates of androids and humans from Descartes through to the present day, examining the ways in which machines have served as a foil for artists, scientists, and philosophers to understand what (if anything) is particularly human about human beings. Questions that will occupy us include: What abilities have historically been thought to distinguish humans from mere machines? And what happens when, as a result of scientific and technological progress, machines become capable of replicating human speech, motion, affection, thought, or labor? Texts and films from Diderot, Hoffmann, Freud, Kafka, Foucault, Marx, Lang, Turing, and Scott, among others. Conducted in English. Students taking the course for German literature credit will meet in extra sessions.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): For German credit: GER 212
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LITG 375
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).