Technophobia

Technology has been integrated into our society so thoroughly today that there are many ways in which we depend on it. As students and faculty it is very difficult not to use computers for work and email. Although humans have been manufacturing technology since about 2.5 million years ago, today we have the capability of constructing machines that think for themselves, preferably to lessen the work of humans or enhance life, however we choose to look at it.

A couple of questions we will be exploring include:

Is the integration of technology healthy to our society or does it act as a threat to our society?

Should technology be feared or its application and/or development by humans?

While we understand that technology has had both problems and benefits, we would like to examine how fear of technology (technophobia) has manifested itself into the literary and film genres of the gothic and science fiction, particularly in the use of cyborgs and monsters. The books Frankenstein and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Mary Shelley and Phillip K. Dick, as well as the films Blade Runner, Terminator, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix will help to explore these issues.