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QUEER ROBOTICS: Cyborgs in Science Fiction & AnthropologyWinter 2017, Tues & Thurs 3:30-4:50University Hall, Rm. 102ANTHRO 390 / GSS 363 Prof. Mitali Thakor | mitali@northwestern.eduOffice Hours: Wednesdays 1-3pm and by appointment, Kresge Hall 3217

Hajime Sorayama, Untitled (c.1980s)

Course DescriptionWhat do representations of robots and cyborgs in popular film, sci-fi literature, and cultural anthropology tell us about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to be “human?” In this class we will use critical race studies, queer and feminist theory, disability studies, and science and technology studies (STS) to analyze representations of “cyborg” bodies in speculative fiction and ethnography. Our case examples explore the politics of the body through narratives of military research, artificial intelligence, sex work, urbanism and segregation, biotech research, prosthetics and athleticism, new reproductive technologies, and more. We will engage with poetry, film, visual art, and speculative fiction to explore how bodies are dreamed, crafted, and represented.

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Learning Goals Moving from novels and poems, to anthropological work on cybercultures, to films like Blade Runner, students will learn to question, blur, and play with dualist categories, e.g. human/nonhuman, female/male, heterosexual/ homosexual, global/local, and natural/cultural. Students will be able to describe how various scholars and artists have conceptualized the agency of human and nonhuman actors. This course will suggest that the “cyborg” is an especially useful analytic for looking at the construction of social categories that can deeply impact our daily practices, intimacies, livelihoods, and visions for the future. By the end of the semester students will have an introduction to thinking critically about the relationships between gender, sexuality, race, and knowledge production, technoscience, and categories of identity. We will be dealing with some difficult texts—texts that are visual, tactile, and may be emotionally triggering. Building a community with your classmates is integral. To this end, class discussion of academic articles will be supplemented with techniques from Theater of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal), a variety of visual, non-verbal, and movement-based “games” or exercises for digesting concepts around power, privilege, and divisions. According to Theater of the Oppressed, all of life may be divided into either "spectacles of oppression" or "carnivals of resistance," and interactive theater teaches us to become "spect-actors," not just passive observers, of oppressions in our daily lives. Readings Students are required to obtain a personal copy of the two novels we will read in this course.

● Ashby, Madeline. 2012. vN. New York: Angry Robot Press (Penguin Random House).

● Bacigalupi, Paolo. 2009. The Windup Girl. San Francisco: Night Shade Books.All other readings will be posted on Canvas. Films will be provided in class. You must come to class having done the readings. On the calendar below, the readings listed under each date indicate what you should have completed before that class. (For example, on January 10, come to class having read the Prologue of vN and the article on “Cyborg Anthropology.”) Please note this class has a mixture of academic essays, novels, and poems. The reading time for each of these will vary by person; make note of this as you plan your schedule for the quarter.

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Grading and Requirements

Attendance, Preparation, & Participation – 20% ● Attendance is mandatory. If you are unable to attend class, please email me before

noon the day of class with a reasonable excuse (“reasonable” is at my discretion). Students are allowed two unexcused absences over the quarter; after that, your class participation will drop a letter grade for each additional unexcused absence. Arriving to class more than 20 minutes late counts as an unexcused absence.

● This is a participation-based class and I expect you to actively contribute to discussion and demonstrate proficiency with the assigned readings.

● Laptops/tablets/phone use is not permitted in class unless I specify that you may bring them for use on certain class days, or if you have specific accessibility needs that you have arranged with me in advance. Disrespecting this policy will detrimentally impact your participation grade.

● I understand there are diverse learning styles, and on my part I will try to provide for multiple ways of participating during class beyond conventional discussion. If you have suggestions for expanding this pedagogical approach, I welcome them!

Response Memos – 30%

● You will submit a short reading response six times during the quarter. These response memos are always due on Wednesdays by 11:59pm, uploaded to Canvas. Length: 300 words minimum.

● Due Dates (Pick 6 of these; you may also do all 7 and have the lowest grade dropped):

o Jan 11o Jan 18 o Jan 25o Feb 1o Feb 8o Feb 15 o Feb 22

● Topic: Each week I will provide some directed questions or storytelling exercises for you to consider in your memo; you may additionally provide your own reflection on the readings, and weave in discussion points from class.

Small Group Presentation – 10%

● Final Presentation with your small group (10min) during Week 9. ● Each group will choose one concept to organize their presentation around:

PLEASURE, IMMORTALITY, DECEPTION, ABILITY ● Final presentation is a creative and open-ended; may take the form of an

analytical presentation, a science fiction skit, film, or leading of a class exercise.

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Outline, Bibliography, and Meeting – 10% ● Your final paper outline is min. 2 pages, written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font,

single-spaced. You may structure your outline with bullet points and/or topical paragraphs (i.e. a rough draft).

● Bibliography of minimum 10 sources you will be using for your paper. At least half must be from this syllabus.

● Due on February 24 at 11:59pm, uploaded to Canvas ● You must schedule a 20min. 1-on-1 meeting with me between Feb 24-March 6 to

discuss your outline/draft. This meeting is mandatory, and designed to help you craft your paper and cultivate bibliographic resources.

Final Paper – 30%

● 6-8 pages for undergraduates, 10-12 pages for graduate students, written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double-spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides.

● Prompts will be provided for the final paper topic ● Your paper is due March 10 at 11:59pm, uploaded to Canvas

Academic IntegrityI am required to report suspected breaches of academic integrity to the Dean’s office. For more information on Northwestern’s academic integrity policies, see http://www.weinberg.northwestern.edu/handbook/integrityAnnouncementsI will be using Announcements on Canvas to share updates to the syllabus, class schedule, etc. These should be infrequent, but please be sure to keep on notifications for announcements.

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Campus ResourcesStudent Assistance & Support ServicesIf you are dealing with a personal or medical issue that has an impact on your ability to attend class or complete work, please discuss this with SASS. A SASS team member will consult with you on how to address the missed work. Students will not be excused from coursework without verification from SASS. http://www.northwestern.edu/studentaffairs/dos/about-us/our-office/assistance-support/Accessible NUAny student requesting accommodations related to a disability or other condition is required to register with AccessibleNU (accessiblenu@northwestern.edu; 847-467-5530) and provide professors with an accommodation notification from AccessibleNU, preferably within the first two weeks of class. All information will remain confidential.Title IX, Sexual Violence, and Sexual HarassmentFederal Title IX legislation makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sexual orientation and/or gender are civil rights offense subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, etc. As an instructor, one of my responsibilities is to help create a safe learning environment on our campus. If you or someone you know has experienced violence or harassment, I can help connect you to appropriate resources such as the Sexual Harassment Prevention Office, Center for Awareness, Response, and Education (CARE), RVA, and Center on Halsted. The Writing PlaceNorthwestern’s center for (free) peer writing consultations. Whether you are writing a paper for a class, composing application letters and essays, or working on some other writing project, a Writing Place consultant can help you at any stage of the writing process, from talking about ideas to developing a plan to revising and editing a draft.http://www.northwestern.edu/nuhelp/academic/the-writing-place/ “First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” – Octavia Butler, science fiction writer

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WEEK 1: Introduction to Thinking Critically with Cyborgs Thursday, January 5

Introductions (no readings)WEEK 2: Testing the HumanTuesday, January 10

Prologue of vN.Downey, Gary, Joe Dumit, and Sarah Williams. "Cyborg Anthropology." Cultural Anthropology 10 (1995): 264-269. [5 pgs]

Week 2 Response due by January 11: What is artificial life? Draw on the readings, especially the essay by Riskin on the defecating duck and Mechanical Turk. You might want to consider why Riskin suggests, “defecation and chess playing had something in common” (622). Do anthropology and sci-fi approach artificial life differently? Thursday, January 12

Riskin, Jessica. 2003. "The Defecating Duck, Or, The Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life." Critical Inquiry. READ ONLY 599-609; 620-24 [16 pgs.] IN CLASS: Begin Blade Runner (1982), Dir. Ridley Scott

WEEK 3: Queer Births & Origin Stories Tuesday, January 17

Collier, Jane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanagisako. 1997. “Is There a Family? New Anthropological Views.” In The Gender/Sexuality Reader, ed. R. Lancaster and M. di Leonardo. New York: Routledge. pp. 71-80. Continue Blade Runner

Week 3 Response due by January 18: What is birth? Contrast vN’s narratives of births with the anthropological article on “the family.” How does the automation, queering, and racialization of birth disrupt how we think about “normal” reproduction, and the normal family? Thursday, January 19

Chap 1-3 of vN Continue Blade Runner

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WEEK 4: Techno-Orientalism and Cyberpunk

Tuesday, January 24 IN CLASS: Finish Blade RunnerNakamura, Lisa. “Race in the Construct and the Construction of Race: The ‘Consensual Hallucination’ of Multiculturalism in the Fictions of Cyberspace.” In Cybertypes. Pp. 61-85. READ ONLY pp. 61-66, 77-85. [15 pgs] Lai, Larissa. 2009. “Rachel” (poem). Automation Biographies. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp. (You may additionally/alternatively listen to Lai reading “Rachel” – https://vimeo.com/7929675).

Week 4 Response due January 25: Why do you think Lai wrote “Rachel?” What would a similar critical race perspective on “Javier” (vN) look like? (Alternative response to my second question: Write a short poem from the perspective of Javier.) Thursday, January 26

Chap 4-9 of vN

Zach Blas, Facial Weaponization Suite (2013)

WEEK 5: Queer Necropolitics and Technologies of War

Tuesday, January 31

Finish vN

Week 5 Response due February 1: Open topic (you may wish to discuss humans’ anxieties of the vN “fail-safe” with regards to one of the articles on drone technologies.)

Thursday, February 2 Read only one (the class will split):

Kapadia, Ronak K. 2016. “Up in the Air and on the Skin: Drone Warfare and the Queer Calculus of Pain.” In Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader, Ed. Nada Elia et al. Durham: Duke University Press. Pp. 360-375.

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Manjikian, Mary. 2014. “Becoming Unmanned: The Gendering of Lethal Autonomous Warfare Technology.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (1). Pp. 49-60.

WEEK 6: Bio-Insecurities Tuesday, February 7

Chapters 1-7 of The Windup Girl Content note: p. 36-38, sexual assault and sexual violence

Week 6 Response due February 8: How are some of the main characters dehumanized? Optional: Practice your skills of sci-fi world-building and ethnographic place-setting: write from the perspective of a non-human creature other than Emiko. Thursday, February 9

Chap 8-12 of The Windup Girl WEEK 7: Prosthetics and Queer Studies of Ableism Tuesday, February 14

Haraway, Donna. 1985. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs.” Kafer, Alison. 2013. “The Cyborg and the Crip: Critical Encounters.” Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Chap 5. Pp. 103-128. “Crip.” (2015). Keywords for Disability Studies. Adams, Rachel, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin, eds. New York: NYU Press.

Optional (will be covered in 2/14 lecture): “Cyborgs at Large: Interview with Donna Haraway.” (1990). Penley, Constance and Andrew Ross. Social Text 25/26: 8-23. Kafer, Alison. “Time for Disability Studies and a Future for Crips.” Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Chap 1. Pp. 25-46.

Week 7 Response due February 15: How does Kafer use and challenge Haraway’s conceptualization of the cyborg? (i.e. What does crip studies offer toward a more critical understanding of cyborg cultures?)

Thursday, February 16

IN CLASS: Ghost in the Shell (1995), Dir. Mamoru Oshii

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WEEK 8: Neocolonialism & Cyborg Survival Tuesday, February 21

Chap 13-24 of The Windup Girl

Optional (will be covered in 2/21 lecture): Schmidt-Tomczak, S. (2015). “The Animation of the Cyborg Trope: Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell.“ In K. Mellberg, L. Wanggren & K. Aghtan (Eds.), Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement. Farnham and London: Ashgate. Yuen, Wong Kin. (2000). On the Edge of Spaces: "Blade Runner", "Ghost in the Shell", and Hong Kong's Cityscape. Science Fiction Studies 27(1): 1-21.

Week 8 Response due February 22: (Last possible submission) This novel has been called “cli-fi”—a genre of science fiction focused on ‘climate fiction’ and environmental catastrophe. How do biological disasters serve as metaphors for insecurities about cyborgs and humanity? What does cyborg “survival” mean in an apocalypse that is already here? (Draw on The Windup Girl and Ahuja article; you may also include Ghost in the Shell and related articles). Thursday, February 23

Chap 24-34 of The Windup Girl *Content note p. 256-257: sexual assault

Ahuja, Neel. (2015). “Intimate Atmospheres: Queer Theory in a Time of Extinctions.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21(2-3): 365-385.

Outline and Bibliography due on February 24 at 11:59pm WEEK 9: Student PresentationsTuesday, February 28

IN CLASS: Student group presentations Thursday, March 2

IN CLASS: Student group presentations

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Ex Machina (2015)

WEEK 10: Cyborg Manifestos and Queer Futures Tuesday, March 7

No readings IN CLASS: Ex Machina (2015), Dir. Alex Garland

Thursday, March 9 No readings

FINAL PAPER

Due on March 10, 11:59pm. 6-8 pages for undergraduates, 10-12 pages for graduate students, written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double-spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides. Optional: Up to two pages (max) of your paper may be written as a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. Refer to this article for an excellent example of blending SF and social science analytical forms: http://catalystjournal.org/ojs/index.php/catalyst/article/view/88/201

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QUEER ROBOTICS ANTHRO 390 / GSS 363 Weekly Response Memo Scorecard Response Memos are 30% of your final grade for the course:

● You will submit a short reading response six times during the quarter. These response memos are always due on Wednesdays by 11:59pm, uploaded to the “Discussions” section of Canvas. Length: 300 words minimum. (Please try not to exceed 500 words; these are intended to be concise.)

● Due Dates (Pick 6 of these; you may also do all 7 and have the lowest grade dropped):

o Jan 11 o Jan 18 o Jan 25 o Feb 1 o Feb 8 o Feb 15 o Feb 22

● Topic: Each week I will provide some directed questions or storytelling exercises for you to consider in your memo; you may additionally provide your own reflection on the readings, and weave in discussion points from class.

Scoring (out of 100 points): COMPLETION: 40 / 40 points Assignment completed on time to specified word requirement. As the due dates are established in advance, and one memo may be dropped, late work will not be accepted except in extenuating circumstances where you have been in prior contact with me and have my written approval. WRITING MECHANICS: /30 points Effective topic sentence(s) that clearly convey the focus of the response: /10 points Use of key concept(s) from the weekly theme: /10 points Citations of evidence clearly conveying that you have read the material: /10 points ANALYTICAL CONTENT: /20 points Demonstrates an understanding of the significance of the readings: /10 points Achieves a depth of analysis in answering the memo questions: /10 points CREATIVE CONTENT: /10 points During some weeks the prompt will be explicitly “creative” (e.g. write a poem). When the focus appears to be more analytical, you may interpret “creative content” to mean the advancement of an original thought or argument you have conceived based on the readings. Including relevant links, images, or videos may garner extra points.

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FINAL PAPER Outline, Bibliography, and Meeting – 10% of final course grade

● Your final paper outline is min. 2 pages, written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, single-spaced. You may structure your outline with bullet points and/or topical paragraphs (i.e. a rough draft).

● Bibliography of minimum 10 sources you will be using for your paper. At least half must be from this syllabus.

● Due on February 24 at 11:59pm, uploaded to Canvas ● You must schedule a 20min. 1-on-1 meeting with me between Feb 24-March 6 to

discuss your outline/draft. This meeting is mandatory, and designed to help you craft your paper and cultivate bibliographic resources.

Final Paper – 30% of final course grade

● 6-8 pages for undergraduates, 10-12 pages for graduate students, written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double-spaced with 1-inch margins on all sides.

● Optional: Up to two pages (max) of your paper may be written as a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. Refer to this article for an excellent example of blending SF and social science analytical forms:

o Benjamin, Ruha. 2016. “Racial Fictions, Biological Facts: Expanding the Sociological Imagination through Speculative Methods.” Catalyst 2(2): 1-28. http://catalystjournal.org/ojs/index.php/catalyst/article/view/88/201

● Your paper is due March 10 at 11:59pm, uploaded to Canvas Prompts: You have your choice of these three prompts: 1) Pick two of the science fictions from this class* and discuss the following: What does resistance look like, and for which characters? *You may pick the two novels (vN and The Windup Girl) or one novel and one film (Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, or Ex Machina), but not two films, as the primary content of analysis. You may, of course, use the remaining works as references. 2) Choose one of the weekly topics from Week 2-8 (e.g. “Queer Births” or “Prosthetics”) and do a deeper case study of a current issue under that topic (e.g. ‘commercial surrogacy’ or the ‘testings of Olympic athletes’). Draw on readings from this class to apply a queer/cyborg studies analysis to the issue. 3) How have anthropologists and sci-fi creators conceptualized desire? How does a queer analysis help us critique these notions of desire? If you would like to write your paper on a topic other than one listed here, please consult with me before writing your outline.