[ACM-W] "aliens, amazons, cyborgs and avatars"

[Bettina Bair]

English 575 sounds like fun - one week of the course is spent in Second
Life.  And the instructor is open to non-traditional presentations (for
example, a 3-D presentation in Second Life).

:-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------


English 575
Women in Science Fiction
Winter 2008, TR 0130-0318

Dr. Sharon Collingwood, 529 Denney Hall (collingwood.7 at osu.edu)
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/Albums.aspx?Name=Ellie+Brewster

In this course you will come across aliens, amazons, cyborgs and avatars.
You will visit fantastic planets, witness frightening visions of the future,
and study bizarre societies. It's all good fun, but underlying the fantasy
is a serious unease about our own world, and an anxiety about what is to
come in the future.

The texts for this course are primarily written by women, and they deal with
issues of gender, race and sexual orientation, as well as with the moral
difficulties women face in an increasingly technological society. Many of
these writers are also concerned over the threat that technology poses to
the natural world, and they point out the ties between the destruction of
nature and the oppression of women.

Other writers put forward the idea of technology as the ultimate liberator
of women, and still others see the possibilities of the "metaverse," an
alternate cyberspace existence, where identity and gender can be cast off
like an old coat. One week of our class time will be spent in a computer lab
exploring this idea in the virtual world Second Life.

In her groundbreaking essay "A Cyborg Manifesto," Donna Haraway says that
she would rather be a cyborg than a goddess. She argues that we can be
responsible for machines and not allow them undue power over us, choosing
instead to use them to enhance our social connectivity and to live better
lives. But what is lost in becoming a cyborg? This is the ultimate question
brought forward by this course, one that demands a personal response from
each student.

Required texts:

Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy (Fawcett 0449210820)
The Female Man, Joanna Russ (Beacon 0807062995)
Les Guerillieres, Monique Wittig and David LeVay (University of Illinois
Press 0252074823)
Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin (The Feminist Press at CUNY1558612467)
A Door Into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski (Orb 0312876521)
Lilith's Brood , Octavia Butler (Grand Central Publishing 0446676101)
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (Bantam Spectra 0553380958)

Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century
ed. Justine Larbalestier. (Wesleyan University Press 0819566764) (additional
short fiction and theory will be made available on our class website)









-- 

*Dr. Sharon Collingwood
Department of Women's Studies
Ohio State University
286 University Hall
230 North Oval Mall
Columbus, Ohio 43210-1311*
*
*
*Department of French & Italian*
*The Ohio State University
200 Hagerty Hall
1775 College Road*
*Columbus, OH  43210-1340*
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