GERM 363 - Cyborgs, Puppets and Borderline Humans

“We are all cyborgs,” Donna Haraway tells us: fabricated hybrids of machine and organism, and increasingly so in the digital age. In this course, we will explore the porous boundary between the human and the parahuman in literature, film, and popular culture. Robots and androids, puppets and marionettes, living statues and Doppelgänger, prosthetic devices from artificial limbs to canes and eyeglasses are just some of the phenomena that inhabit and traverse the border between wo/man and machine, the natural and the artificial. How does culture figure the border between the human and its others? How does this border shift through history? How are parahumans gendered? How natural and how artificial is gender? Texts by Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Tieck, and Heine; films and television series by Fritz Lang, Rainer Maria Fassbinder, and others. Taught in German Prerequisite(s): GERM 308 GERM 309, or study abroad, or permission of the instructor. Offered fall term of even-numbered years. (4 Credits)